Erin- Cumberland- Day Three

Wednesday 16 Jan 2013

Two days have past and unfortunately we have not been able to complete any real
work on the trail. It has been raining off and on the past two days. Myself and the
rest of my group definitely feels bad about not being able to do work on the trail yet,
but with this weather, there is not much we can do. To look in a more positive light, I
have definitely continued to learn a lot even though we have not necessarily worked
on the trail.

Yesterday we were given our break day. We decided to drive about an hour and a
half to Chattanooga, Tennessee and explore the city with our free time. This sounds
like a grand idea, but we didn’t think very logistically about it. We didn’t go with
much of a plan and due to the rain that was quite a silly decision. Chattanooga is
the outdoors capital of this region, thus most of their attractions are outside. This
caused some problems for us and we found ourselves walking around in the rain
with little to do. In the end, everything worked just fine, we made the best of what
we had, but I do wish we had spent some more time planning ahead of time. We
went to an art museum in the morning, ate at some local restaurants for lunch, went
to a thrift store, and played laser tag and bowled. It ended in quite a big day of fun,
but also a time for me to learn that it is better to trust that everything will work out
and that there is no reason for me to stress about small worries.

Today we went on a 6.6 mile hike to see Laurel Falls. This is an eighty-foot waterfall
that is quite majestic. http://www.cumberlandtrail.org/laurel-snow.html. The hike
was very enjoyable; we walked along a river for a ways and then up a mountain,
following the creek most of the time. Finally getting outside after a couple of days
cooped up inside was very helpful for our morale. The stretch we hiked was part
of Cumberland Trail, so it was nice to finally see part of what we’ll be working to
complete.