Date: 2014-02-12
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Miles today: 0.0

What an interesting day yesterday turned out to be. As you could guess, I have this list of things to accomplish before leaving in 47 days. mostly things around the farm. I have had all my gear for months now. I have a final dentist appointment and had a colonoscopy scheduled for yesterday. This was not something I was looking forward to, but I knew I had to do it. Actually, the prep day of no food and drinking laxatives is the worst part. That was exactly how I spent my Monday. I woke early Tuesday morning and noticed that it had snowed a couple of inches overnight. I thought I should call to make sure the procedure was still going to happen before I drove the 40 miles to the hospital. They said to come, things were still on. I really wanted a cup of coffee, but they won't allow you to drink or eat anything before the procedure. I made a final trip to the bathroom and headed out the door with Tamara. They require you to bring someone to drive you home afterwards. The snow kept falling and by the time we left, there were almost 4 inches. We live on a mountain of sorts and get a little more snow than the surrounding area so we thought there would be less once we got off the mountain. Having a 4-WD truck with new tires made driving in the snow pretty easy, but slow. As we started down the mountain we saw a car off the road and then a pickup truck stuck. near the bottom, just before we reached the interstate, there was an 18-wheeler jackknifed and a few cars behind it stopped. We were able to get around the truck without any problem and made our way to the interstate. I really thought it would be clear but Alabama doesn't do much to maintain their roads. after 15 miles of driving on the interstate and the snow falling continuously, we called again to make sure the hospital was still going as planned, and was told yes. 10 minutes later they called back and said the Dr. was not coming in so I needed to reschedule. Normally, getting canceled isn't as big a deal, but when you have to fast and drink laxatives for 30 hours it is quite a disappointment. The good part was I could stop and get a cup of coffee. After making our way off the interstate and to a truck stop we got some coffee and looked at the weather radar. It looked like 40 miles north in Chattanooga TN, there was no snow or rain and everything was south of the TN line. We decided not to get caught up in the mess on the access road home and go to Chattanooga instead thinking it would be cleared up later. Just before we got to TN we stopped at a health food store operated by a Seventh-day Adventist community. They have great deals on bulk foods. We bought $90 of dehydrated and/or freeze dried fruit and vegetables that we will pack into small, mixed bags to carry at times on the trail. There was just a dusting of snow there so we decided to get some lunch and go Hiking :-) . We weren't really prepared for hiking since the day started with a totally different agenda, but we had packed some warm clothes so we figured all we needed was a water bottle. There was an 8+/- mile loop nearby that I had been wanting to do so we made our way over and shortly after 2, we were in the woods. It turned out to be a great day to be on the trail. (aren't they all?) After we finished we drove the 10 minutes to Chattanooga and had a couple IPAs and a nice dinner at the Flying Squirrel. We drove home on snow-free roads and there was only an inch or so snow on the ground when we arrived home. 30 minutes later we were in the hot tub laughing about how differently the day was than we thought just the night before. It was an awesome day. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to mark the colonoscopy off my list and have to reschedule it sometime in the next 46 days.