Doable dream hikes

This a picture of Tim when we were hiking in Chimney Rock, NC. He looks so happy and content. We just loved doing that, enjoyed it so much.

One of the goals we have is to spend more time hiking! We are not getting any younger and feel bad that we didn't do this more, when our children were home. Sigh....well, you know what they say about hindsight.....I guess we'll just have to move forward and not waste any more time looking back at what we should have done.

But, our finances are tight right now....whose aren't?! Anyway, here we are with very little equipment. We have a couple of those "around your waist" hip packs. ( I know what they're really called, I just think it's a weird name for them) a small back pack, a tent and enough basics to take on day hikes and go camping. Nothing fancy. 

We have very little extra funds at the moment. So, I'm getting a bit inventive. Found the packs at yard sales, got the tent on a really good sale. I've even been entering some giveaways on hiking and camping type blogs. Hey, we actually won something! From PAhikes, we won a pocket chainsaw and it can really saw some wood. Tim had to try it out. Not that he plans on cutting our years supply of firewood with it! But for camping  it'll be really be nice to use,  for those wonderful campfires. I got the idea to enter from a blog I started following they list all the giveaways to enter every Friday. You don't have to be from here to enter. The place I won the pocket chainsaw was in Pennsylvania. Here's the blog if you're interested in such things. Appalachia and Beyond

They  also posted the nicest link about hiking in our area. It has some doable hikes. Close, (costs less) some are shorter, (we'll start with those) and some are longer (work up to those). I thought you might enjoy reading about them. I wanted to be sure and have the link here on our blog so I thought I'd write a quick post about it. Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau Nature Trail I think there are 49 separate hikes all within either a few minutes to a few hours. In other words attainable. We could do many of them as day hikes and be home for supper. 

Of course our dream hike would be to thru hike the Appalachian Trail. Lots of people dream about that one. Our son and his friend seriously considered it at one point. I wish now I would have encouraged them more to do that. At least a good section. I mean now our son is married with two children and some serious responsibilities, his friend is in school and engaged to be married. It would have been the ideal time when they were young and single. Although, some families do sections of it each year. Great family togetherness! It's always good to dream. But we know how fast life can get away from you, so, we need attainable and doable dreams. A lot of those trails fit the bill for us.

We'll keep entering the giveaways, checking out yard sales and thrift store for people who just didn't get into the hiking/ camping thing and are willing to part with their "treasures" for our happy donations! Anybody who has good economical ideas about hiking and camping, we'd be thrilled to hear them.