A Morning Hike, Retirement Party, and Sausage Gravy

Our fun-filled week continued as we launched into the weekend.  We’re as busy now as we ever were when we had jobs.  How did we have time for work?

Despite the heavy fog and cool temperature, we were out early Friday morning for a hike at Percy Warner Park.  There are seven miles of trail in this park.  We hike the 4.5 mile Mossy Ridge loop most often, but there is also Warner Woods Trail, a 2.5 mile loop.  These two loop trails are connected by a short access trail at the Deep Well Parking lot. We began our hike by doing the Mossy Ridge loop.  When we got back around to the access trail, we had to do some pretty stiff talking to ourselves to continue to the Warner Woods trail.

We have been trying to hike longer distances in an effort to rebuild the level of fitness we lost over the summer.  We’re looking forward to doing some hiking in the Smoky Mountains next spring, so will need to get back to into hiking shape.  We’re working at it, but it is so hard.

The Warner Woods Trail is much easier than Mossy Ridge and it took us just about an hour to complete the loop.  I don’t know if Gene was really feeling his Cheerios or if he just wanted to get finished, but he never stopped walking.  We did 7 miles without a break.  I was dragging one foot in front of the other by the time we got back to the car.

Friday evening we helped one of our fellow Tennessee Trails hiking friends celebrate her retirement.  The party was fun.  Nancy, the guest of honor, is so excited about this next stage in her life.  Her enthusiasm just filled up the house.  We also got to see several of our hiking friends, most of whom we haven’t seen since last year’s Christmas party.

This morning, we were up and out to meet my cousin, Joan, for breakfast.  We have been trying to get with her and her husband ever since we returned to Nashville in September.  Unfortunately, Jeff had to work again so he was unable to join us.  But Joan can eat whether Jeff is there or not, so we sat down to a big breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  Joan and I both ordered the same thing--chicken biscuits with scrambled eggs, apples and sausage gravy.

When our plates came, we realized immediately we had a problem with that gravy.  We’re both country girls and what a country girl does with gravy is put it on the biscuit.  Our biscuits had chicken stuffed in them.  I solved my problem by unstuffing the chicken from the biscuits.  Joan preserved the integrity of her chicken biscuits and poured her gravy on her eggs.  I suppose we should have chosen grits, but honestly, how can a country girl pass up sausage gravy?

I didn't have the camera along for these activities so have included shots from our trip to the Southwest a couple years ago.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for tagging along.