Spring Break 2011-Day Four

We need a big breakfast to fuel our day so bacon, eggs and biscuits it was! We retraced our steps from the night before and made our way down to the river crossing to the loop trail. We had decided not to make the entire 4 miles but to use a cut-through trail on the map that shaved off 1.8 miles total. Other than a short detour down what we thought was the trail (it wasn’t) we had no trouble. Pattie didn’t walk the whole time but she did walk a great deal of it on her own. She even carried her own water backpack! We stopped on the cut-through to eat a snack and rest up a bit. FYI: bananas are awesome! I felt like I could take on the world after eating mine.


When we got back to the river crossing, the kids changed into swimsuits and braved the frigid waters for a little while. I will admit to taking off my shoes and socks and rolling up my pant legs to cool my feet off. Clay was shivering but refusing to get out of the water. We finally made him come out and dry off. After we all crossed back over safely and were staring up the trail back to camp, Pattie said, “Where’s Sticky?” She had found and fell in love with a stick and we had left it on the other side of the river. Awesome dad that he is, Jayme went back to get it for her.

We were critically low on beer at this point so we headed into town and found some good grub at “The Chrome Cactus”, a cute little diner in nearby Johnson City. They don’t have a Walmart in Johnson City though. Instead they have a Super S Foods in combination with an Ace Hardware. You read that correctly! Next to the saw parts and shovels there was a pretty good beer selection including our favorites from Shiner and Real Ale breweries. We didn’t do much that evening. We had a little campfire and after Pattie fell asleep the boys had S’mores. I went to bed early as Pattie still wasn’t sleeping too well at night.

The Chrome Cactus