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The Cattle:
Towards the end of the hike we were descending the grassy hills and came across these grazing cattle. I had no idea just how massive they were until we walked within 15 feet of them.
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A Beetle:
As we were beginning to tackle the second and more arduous trail I spotted this beetle. It's orange color really stands out from the lush green environment suggesting this beetle may have some form of defense to compensate.
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Overlooking The Lake From the Colonel's Place:
This picture fully encompasses the short paved trails we had used earlier. The trail around the lake is not visible from this distance. This picture has less of the foreground in it.
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Overlooking The Lake From the Colonel's Place:
This picture was taken from a North Carolina State Park that featured the preservation of some historically significant ranch. Whose ranch it was and why it was significant (beyond the fact that it was old) escapes my recollection. Like much of North Carolina that I saw, Blue Ridge Parkway was extraordinarily green compared to California. Meta-thinking about the vast differences in water supply reminded me of Frank Herbert's Dune. Funnily enough, the 'drought' North Carolina was experiencing at the time was a big news item alongside the West Nile Virus. I got the impression that the mindset towards water conservation in North Carolina was vastly different from my own.
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The Hikers:
Nish finally made it into this picture before the timer expired. Lena perched atop the sign, and I am leaning against it. Our light clothing suggests the humidity of that day and North Carolina in general. It seemed like a tropical storm was going through -- high humidity and temperatures in the 70s meant I didn't mind getting caught in the sudden downpour until I got out of the rain and started drying off.
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The First Attempt:
Nish didn't quite make it in time for this picture.
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Eating Lunch:
PB&J rarely tastes so good as when you're outdoors and in need of some energy. This is likely the first and only time I've used that backpack (it later went to my brother who made good use of it). The stones lined a spillway for an earthen damn. A thin sheet of water constantly streamed down it feeding algae and moss as it went. For a moment I wondered why the spillway actually had water flowing out. Then I remembered that the same amount of water flowing down this spillway was entering via the creek we had followed into the back of the resevoir.
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