Another Family Visit

My sister, Joanne, and her friend Amanda are here for a visit! They took a few days off work to come out here. Since they are both teachers they were able to leave right after school and drive most of the way yesterday. They thought they would get here by lunchtime today but since it was such a late night they had a late start this morning as well. I waited at the visitor center, just hanging out and using the wifi. When they arrived we headed to the campground. I reserved a site for them a few weeks ago when I found out it was filling up fast, because this weekend also happens to be the annual storytelling festival at Big South Fork! Fortunately I had picked a good site - not too far from the bathroom, right at the edge of the woods, and plenty of room for two tents.

Joanne, my sister, is the one on the right; Amanda is on the left.

Once the campsite was set up, we headed out into the park! We decided to hike the Sunset Overlook trail, since it was a bit shorter than some of the other hikes and it was getting late in the afternoon at this point.

Of course, we had to go to East Rim Overlook first.

Some of the dogwoods are getting a head start on fall colors.

Then we backtracked to the Sunset Rim parking lot.

This was the first time in a while that I've done a hike later in the day. Usually I try to get an early start - especially since it still gets pretty warm in the afternoon sometimes. Today wasn't too bad, especially since we were in the shade.

I'm pretty sure these are wintergreen berries.

This is some kind of goldenrod, different from what I've been seeing in the meadows - a woodland variety.

The afternoon light made some nice reflections on the pond.

We kept walking into spiderwebs, so we started a spider stick. Whoever was in the lead took the stick and waved it in front of their face as they walked in order to snag the webs before walking into them. After a while, we noticed that we had a passenger!

This little spider not only stayed on the stick, it was trying to reconstruct its web! We kept stopping to check on it. Eventually we set the stick down and lost track of it.

Getting close to the edge!

I'm definitely going to have to come back to this spot when the fall colors are at their peak.

Amanda and Joanne seeing it all for the first time!

Me and my sister.

Black Gum trees - another early red tree. The roads are lined with these, and with sumac, which are even brighter red.

Blueberry bushes turn red as well - a very colorful forest floor!

A few purple asters.

I spotted an ant lion pit in the small amount of sand covering the trail, basically eroded by people walking across this rock. Somewhere at the bottom is a predator just waiting for its victims to fall into the pit. Just like in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

A spiky little puffball! This is a totally different type of fungus than the other mushrooms I was seeing along the trail.

Okay, here's another one that's a totally different type - a large shelf fungus on a rotting log.

The pond in shadow.

The light through the trees at that time of day is just wonderful.

After we got back to the car, we headed back to the campground - but stopped first at the Leatherwood Ford picnic area to get down by the river. For some inexplicable reason I left my camera in the car, but I am hoping to get a few of Joanne's pictures to post here.

We spent a few minutes looking at the jewelweed growing near the parking lot. Amanda had never seen it before and was delighted with the way the little seed pods explode. (That's why they also call it "Touch-Me-Not"!) I've long been familiar with that, but was delighted as well and played with them longer than she did...

We got back to the campground and had supper, then got a campfire going. I stayed for quite a while; we toasted marshmallows but didn't sing any songs, just gazed into the fire. It was pretty cool out by the time I left.