Jeff Billimek’s Journal

My alarm woke me up at 6am. I snoozed until 6:30 and then got up. I wore my tan-colored cargo shorts, my new white & red Abercrombie shirt, and my old hiking boots.

I packed up my backpack, downloaded driving directions to Cloudland Canyon State Park and left the apartment.

It took me two hours to drive there and the trip was pretty uneventful. While I was driving into the park, I got a call from Mom. She was in Orlando and missed her flight (it was too full). I urged her to try to change her standby priority to ‘S2′ for the next flight as it will get increasingly more difficult to return to Atlanta as the day goes on.

I parked, loaded up my backpack, wore my Lowepro chest strap, and headed out. The hike was pretty good. Because I had a fairly early start, I didn’t see many other people. I had my tripod with me and used it when I took some photos of the waterfalls.

The rest of the trail was a 5.7 mile loop. It goes along the rim of the canyon and there are some great views. While hiking, I saw an interesting clump of moss on the side of the trail. I was so transfixed by this that I didn’t see the long snake who (fortunately) got spooked and slithered off a few feet away. There were a lot of nice rock formations and rocky outcroppings.

I took a lot of photos. In fact, I filled up the 1GB microdrive and most of the 256MB CF card. I took about 580 photos while hiking.

I left the park around 2:30pm. On my drive home, I had a voicemail from Mom. She made it back on that second flight. She asked me if I wanted to come over to for BBQ tonight. That sounded like a wonderful idea to me.

I got home around 4:15pm and uploaded all the photos. I left about 6pm for Mom’s place. It was a very pleasant 20 minute drive (sunny and in the high 60’s) through the back roads and subdivisions. When I arrived, Jim had just begun to cook the steaks on the grill.

Mom showed me around the house. The last time I visited, they had just moved in and everything was in disarray. Now it looks pretty good. They have pretty much every room done except for a couple.

We had dinner in the family room and watched the second-half of ‘Armageddon’. We had grilled steak, grilled vegetables (zucchini, onions, squash, and carrots), sweet potatoes, pasta salad, and tossed salad. For desert, Mom made hot applesauce crunch. It was a really good dinner. I certainly miss home-cooked meals, especially the ones that Mom makes.

After dinner, I helped Jim move a large armoire to the upstairs bedroom and helped him move a long 9-foot sofa downstairs to the garage.

I left their place around 9:30pm. When I got home, I wrote my journal for Friday and Saturday. I also went through all of my Cloudland Canyon photos and uploaded them to my photo gallery.