memorial day in blue ridge • 05.30.10

we headed up to blue ridge to enjoy memorial day weekend with drew and blake and blake’s friend christy. we drove in and went straight out for a little 3 mile hike around to the creek/waterfall where we had gotten engaged almost two years before. it was a beautiful hike. speaking of beautiful, here lillis is (i think) demonstrating a bear attack.
lillis made friends with a butterfly as we sat and rested at the top of the falls
lillis wanted me to get a pic of us up there

i took a video of lil sitting atop the falls.

that afternoon, drew and christy and i headed down to the river to do some fly fishing. the river looked good, but we didn’t get much in the way of fish. drew caught one, and i lost one with too much slack in my line. it was, however, a good time……peaceful out on the river and warm enough for a wet wade.

the next day, lil and i were gonna go kayaking but it was raining. so, we decided to drive across to the outlets (after breakfast at a cute diner up in blue ridge). the sky was amazing along our drive……big angry clouds and deep green fields and trees.

at the outlets, we got lillis a coffee press at williams sonoma, and we decided to splurge a bit and buy some patio furniture at the pottery barn outlet….a nice sectional made from eucalyptus with big cushy red waterproof cusion. we spent a good bit of time sunday reading books outside under the magnolia trees in our new fancy outdoor couch.

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new years 2010 • 01.01.10

i could check my blog to jog my memory, but i believe this is the 3rd year in a row that i’ve rung in the new year the same way…..teaming up with drew and other dudes to beat lillis in guesstures. i will grant that lillis dominates in taboo, but at guesstures, she can just never seem to get her team across the finishline in first place. this year drew started us off with a gooseegg, but rallied and redemeed our team before mike sealed the championship on the last card. good times.
oh, so other than that. we drove up to blue ridge (and had bbq at the pink pig in cherry log. pretty good bbq and very good price). When we got in, Drew and i decided to disregard the frigid temperatures and the turgid nature of the river and wade into the near darkness and try and fly fish. i consider it a victory b/c we didn’t tip our waders or get the car stuck in the mud (although we came very close to doing both).
so, when we gave up (without having even inconvenienced a fish) we headed back to the cabin. mike brought up the deep frier and so we ate a fine dinner of fried turkey (pictured below) and a rockin salad (blake) and some sort of fancy potato recipe that lillis dug out of one of my mom’s many recipe related magazines. when i was a kid, i’m pretty sure we ate corn, mashed potatoes and fried porkchops most nights. i wish she had had all those fancy cooking magazines back then. i could have joined the ranks of the millions of overweight kids in america. anyway, the meal was delish.
and was accompanied by the 12 gallon bottle of wine that blake had found.
you may recognize this to be lillis, who is featured prominently in many of our posts.
happy new years picture of drew and blake, mike and amanda and lillis and your author.
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More Kayaking on the Toccoa • 10.16.09

having finally decided on a job (i ended up taking the american express offer instead of the job at nasco. it was a VERY difficult decision with one representing more long term certainty and the other more short term opportunity and freedom. i took the opp and freedom over the certainty…..hope i still think that’s a good choice 3 years from now) drew and i headed up to blue ridge for a day. we headed up thursday night to his cabin and then went out kayaking on the toccoa river the next morning, then played some golf at Whitepath golf course in Ellijay. the river was great that morning, and the golf course is a pretty interesting layout. we had a great time kayaking and on the golf course, with drew shooting 1 over on the front side.
it was a beautiful morning on the water with fog still clinging to the mountain.
drew is part monkey. he brought the most bruised up bananas i’ve ever seen out on the river with us. it was like someone shoved pudding inside of a banana peel.
here we are at the end of the run just up river from the bridge there. not a bad morning commute.

and here’s a little video of drew ripping the water up

Kayaking in Blue Ridge from charles breland on Vimeo.

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