{"id":613,"date":"2008-10-21T21:15:24","date_gmt":"2008-10-22T01:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/?p=613"},"modified":"2008-10-21T21:15:24","modified_gmt":"2008-10-22T01:15:24","slug":"the-road-less-traveled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/?p=613","title":{"rendered":"The road less traveled"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Last weekend, taking advantage of a few days of Fall Break, we took off for a mental health holiday.  Winding through Oliver Springs, then Wartburg, up past Huntsville and taking a left at Oneida, we explored a tiny portion of the national treasure that is Big South Fork<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gamma’s taking a lifeguarding class, so she had to stay behind (thanks Girlfriend, for giving her a safe place to sleep and making sure she was well fed).  HWTFM, Delta, and I camped.<\/p>\n

On Saturday night after setting up camp and fixing a quick supper, we headed up to Stearns, KY to ride the Big South Fork Scenic Railway<\/a> — or more specifically, the Haunted Hollow Express.  It was a little scary, but very, very entertaining!  We’ll definitely go back for a longer, daytime ride to Devil’s Jump<\/a> someday.<\/p>\n

Yes, it was 33 degrees Sunday morning.  But, the fire was warm and we fixed a good breakfast… bacon sizzling over an open fire cures a world of ills.  By noon or so, we took off on an ambitious mountain bike adventure — about fourteen miles, but it was fourteen miles of steep terrain.  We forded a couple of streams, and one small river.<\/p>\n

On Monday, we hiked.  Dog enjoyed the hike, but even more so, the swim that he took at our turnaround point.  He didn’t bark at the many horses, nor at other hikers.  He stayed close to us, but enjoying every scent, every sound in the forest.  We saw giant leaves that I can’t identify, but some other hikers told us they were known as "hillbilly toilet paper."<\/p>\n

Three days (well, two full days and two half days) of no phone, no internet, no television, no radio, no news, no politics.  Double doses of fresh air, sunshine, and quiet.  We went to bed tired every night, and slept soundly.<\/p>\n

Today, we returned home to attend to real life — things like HWTFM’s Charter Commission campaign<\/a>, finishing Gamma’s halloween costume, Delta’s geometry homework, school board stuff… the eveyday stresses that make sleeping in the woods away from everything and everyone else so attractive to begin with.<\/p>\n

We’re fortuate to live so close to such paradise.  Every day, we hear endless griping about what’s wrong with our [country\/city\/state\/school\/fill-in-the-blank], yet we’re only a short drive away from getting away from it all.  If everyone took such a break once in a while — it’s a national park, so it’s an absolutely affordable getaway — we’d all be in a better mood, easier to get along with.<\/p>\n

I certainly am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last weekend, taking advantage of a few days of Fall Break, we took off for a mental health holiday.  Winding through Oliver Springs, then Wartburg, up past Huntsville and taking a left at Oneida, we explored a tiny portion of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}