RA Overnight at Bent Tree

January 9-10, 2009

We headed to Bent Tree for an RA overnight on January 9. We had three boys, two fathers and three RA leaders, plus Brenda who went up to cook for us. Connor Smith and Austin Hughes jump into a chess game.

Brenda fixed a hotdog and chili supper for us. Clockwise from left above: Chuck Smith, Johnny Huffman, Connor Smith, Rod Nave, Stan, Larry Gilman and Michael Gilman.

We didn't have to worry about a lot of rowdiness with this group. Right after supper Austin, Michael, and Connor had an enthusiastic round with their video games.

Then it was time for some games of UNO, the boys' favorite game.From left CW Johnny, Stan, Connor, Chuck, Michael, Austin. They played until about 11 and settled in for the night.

With early daylight on the mountains outside, Brenda had fixed a breakfast of eggs, biscuits and sausage gravy. Connor particularly liked the sausage gravy.

We headed out for our morning hike and took this group picture at the top of Buckskull Court just below our driveway.

We headed up the steep mountainside through the woods. Everyone was puffing when we got to this log about halfway up Big Stump Mountain. We stopped there for water, as shown below.

The rock ridge on the side of Big Stump mountain represents the end of the steepest part of the climb.

We reached the top of Big Stump and had planned to go to the top of Ogtlethorpe from t here, but it started raining and we turned back. We stopped at this house at the top of the logging road for a picture overlooking the lake under the clouds.

This is the crew coming down the very steep slope at the back of the house.

Slipping and sliding, we came down behind the house. Leaving our muddy shoes at the door, we decided to have lunch at the house because of the rain.

We headed toward the lake and saw the nice pair of deer above on the way. We had to let the boys throw rocks for a while.

The falls were roaring after all the rain. We took the boys down to see the water rushing out of the pool below the falls. At this point the rain started pouring, so we headed to the vehicles for the trip home.

We gathered for our traditional final picture on the dam with gathering clouds and light rain. We ran into very heavy rainshowers as we left Bent Tree, so we had been blessed with getting everything in before the bottom dropped out. From left Larry Gilman with Michael in front, Johnny Huffman with Austin Hughes, Stan, Chuck Smith with Connor in front.

Jeff finishes Elyse's rockhorse.
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