Cabin Trip November 2017

Fair weather for the trip.

I actually wrote the blog post last Sunday, but the internet was overloaded with people shopping online for the holidays.  I was not able to upload my photos, so I thought I'd put it off for a day and try again.  Unfortunately, the next day was cyber-Monday.  I still wasn't able to upload the photos.  Today is the first day I have had tine to get back to the blog, so here it is, better late than never.  I plan to post on Sunday again as usual.

We made one last trip to the cabin this year.  The weather favored us although the forecast leading up to the trip was all over the place.  At one point it said there could be rain, snow, and ice pellets (firmer than sleet but too small to be hail?)  We changed our plans a couple of times, but as the date for the trip became closer, the weather cleared.  For once, we were not leaving in rain.  However, as the day progressed, the sky turned gray.  A cold front came through, but it was a dry front with heavy winds.  After we arrived at the cabin the weather service put out a travel advisory saying that high profile vehicles should stay off the road until after the wind abated.

Kudzu loses its leaves in cold weather.

Generally the weather was nice for this time of year.  Some days it made it up close to 50 degrees Fahrenheit ( 10 C.)  At night it was close to freezing, give or take a degree in either direction.  We did not have any precipitation while we were there.

Trees are bare at higher elevations.

The nights were chilly.  We have some radiator heaters, but much of our heat comes from a wood cook stove.  Once the fire dies down it can get pretty cold.  Some mornings we woke up to a nippy inside temperature of 46 degrees F. (7.78 C.)  We were an amusing sight in our thermal wear with an extra shirt over top, two pairs of socks, and our sleep hats.  We stayed under the covers for as long as we could, but sooner or later we had to get up and start the day.

This will be our last trip up for the year.  Our primary mission was to get as many leaves as possible out of the yard.  All the leaves are down now.  The last time we went up there many of the trees were still a leafy green.  Also, there were plenty of apples down that needed to be picked up.  I think we moved three tarps of apples.  I made an apple pie with some of them.

Shadows falling on the cabin.

My husband worked on the upstairs floor while we were there.  He finished the underlayment on the last trip.  This trip he was working on leveling the floor prior to installing laminate flooring up there.  The floor has to be very level to install laminate.  If there is more than an eighth inch of difference in the floor it could cause the laminate to crack.  To get the floor level, he has been using layers of tar paper to build up the floor in spots where it was low.  Wouldn't you know it, with twenty feet (6.09 meters) of floor left to finish he ran out of tar paper.  It is a long ways to a hardware store, so the rest of the floor will have to wait until our next trip up in the spring.   Tar paper is sold in 100 foot rolls (30.48 meters) so I guess we will forever have roughly 80 feet (24.38 meters) of tar paper left in the shed.

Locking up for the winter

Our first night there, we rescued a lost hunter.  He was a young guy, no more than eighteen or twenty.  It had been fully dark for over an hour before he found us.  He said he had been walking for hours.  He had an app for his phone that was supposed to show him the way back to his vehicle.  Unfortunately, either the app would not work when there was no signal or the app was not a very good one.  I guess he was inexperienced enough to rely on technology and did not do anything to mark his way through the woods.  When his app did not work, he could not find his way back.  My husband had to drive him to look for his truck, but it was not where he thought it was.  There is one place on the mountain where you can get a cell signal.  The hunter was able to call his father and have him come pick him up to go searching for his truck.  He was reunited with his family if not his vehicle.

The guy was very lucky that we were at the cabin.  There was no one at the other cabins until the next day.  There are no more cabins higher up on the mountain. You have to go over the mountain and well down the other side before there is another one.  And most of those cabins are not occupied year round until you get a good way down the mountain.  He could have been walking for hours more.  Also, the day had started out warm, so he was in a short sleeve shirt with insulated overalls.  By the time he found us, a cold front had come through and there was a high wind.  I am sure he was chilled through and through.  Fortunately, he had a flashlight.  It was just at New Moon, so it was very dark.  If we had not been there, I am not sure his batteries would have held out all the way over the mountain.

I guess there are lessons to be learned from this.  Technology is great, but you cannot always rely on it.  If he had marked his way through the woods as he went, he could still have found his way back.  Weather can change very quickly in the mountains.  If he had carried a jacket or some windproof layer, he would not have been so cold.  So yes, this guy was very lucky to have seen the lights of our cabin.  But no one should depend on luck when they go into the woods.  Be prepared.