Living Under a Rock?

We're pretty certain most of you have given up on us and figured we've caved in and took solace under a rock with having a new member of the family. That really couldn't be further from the truth. While taxing, raising our wee-little one hasn't completely kept us from getting out and about. It has however, really limited us from having any quality "sit down in front of a computer to get something done other than bills" time. Also considering work, regular run of the mill household tasks and upkeep, and a nagging an all out painful back issue, we have been somewhat limited in what we've been able to do in the out of doors arena.

So what have we been up to other than wrangling babies, playing taxi driver, and battling a fiery hip/back/leg due to a herniated disk impinging on a nerve? Long story short, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We've been on some walks, playing on playgrounds here and there when the weather permits it, a short hike, plenty of scenic drives, and for Tim, quite a bit of running including two trail races as he converts from a road runner to a trail runner. There's also been a couple impromptu trips to Mississippi to visit Tim's father in the hospital. He's suffered a couple heart attacks back in February and Cardiac arrest while in the hospital. We ask that y'all keep his dad and family in your prayers.

So as time rolls and my goodness does it, we can't believe that March is already almost half way over, you can look forward to more posts of what we've done in the past few months. We have some gear reviews that are long over due, a couple of race reports, a failed hike and lesson in risk management on the trail, among several others. What's more is Tim is now also a proud member of the Terramar Tribe so you can be certain to see some reviews on some Terramar gear. Tim can honestly say that the base layers he currently has from Terramar are awesome. He's in love with them.

Duraflame® Campfire Roasting Logs™ Giveaway

We've been pretty busy the past couple of weeks. Add in the hot weather keeping us mostly indoors and that is why you haven't really heard much out of us. We just finished up with a yard sale this past weekend so unless you want a post about that (we put our old junk stuff in the yard and people bought our old junk stuff) or about our time out at our Aunt Patty's pool, then I guess a good giveaway will have to do. :P

Guest Gear Review For Brian's Backpacking Blog

We somehow managed to score another Guest Post on a very prominent outdoor blog. You guys know of Brian's Backpacking Blog right? We'll he asked if we'd like to do a guest gear review post for his blog and right away we said yes, cause that's what we outdoorsy folks do, we help each other out. Anyway, considering we've got back into the running scene, we've reviewed the Camelbak Marathoner's Vest for Brian and you can check it out on his blog: Brian's Backpacking Blog.

Happy Trails,
Tim and Robin

Five Year Blogiversary Giveaway Day 5 (Miscellaneous)

Welcome to the final day of our 5 Year Blogiversary Celebration. Today is "Miscellaneous" day and we've got a great package for everyone out there. There's a few different items that can suit just about anyone. We want to thank today's sponsors, Bass Pro Shops and Cobrabraid for supplying the main prizes in today's giveaway. You never know there might be a couple other prizes to go along with it. So who's going to win this package?

Five Year Blogiversary Giveaway Day 4 (Runner)

Welcome to Day 4 of our 5 Year Blogiversary Celebration. Today is "Runner" day and we've got a great package for the runners out there. Whether it's out on the road or trail, or after the run, these items are sure to come in handy. We want to thank today's sponsors, Headsweats and Hyland's Homeopathy, for supplying the prizes in today's giveaway. So who's going to run away with this package?

Five Year Blogiversary Giveaway Day 3 (Survival)

Welcome to Day 3 of our 5 Year Blogiversary Celebration. Today is survival day and we've got a couple tools that will definitely come in handy when out in the backcountry, camping, or if you find your self in a sticky situation. We want to thank today's sponsors, Cobrabraid and COAST Products, for supplying the prizes in today's giveaway. Let's get to the package details shall we?

Five Year Blogiversary Giveaway Day 2 (Food)

Welcome everyone to Day 2 of our Blogiversary Giveaways. Today we are thinking about food and how good it is after a tough day hiking, backpacking, or even camping. We have a few great food items which are perfect for the pack or while camping. A special thanks goes out to Hungry Hikers and Vasque Footwear for sponsoring today's prizes. What's up for grabs you ask? Well let's get to it.

Five Year Blogiversary Giveaway Day 1 (Hiker)

Happy 5 Year Blogiversary to Appalachia & Beyond. We hope everyone is just as excited about this as we are. We've been anxiously waiting for this day to get here. As you all know we have decided to have 5 full days of giveaways just to celebrate the occasion. Also, just to be clear, you have a full week to enter on each day's giveaway starting on the day of each giveaway (e.g. Monday's giveaway will stay open until Sunday, Tuesday's until Monday, etc.).

5 Year Blogiversary Giveaway Teaser

With our blogiversary coming up next week, we thought we'd get everyone excited with us and let you know what would be given away on what days. So without further ado...

Monday = "Hiker" giveaway package. (Please note you don't necessarily have to be a hiker to enter.)

• A Pair of Women's GoodHew socks size M/L (These are the Lumber Janes that will be out this Fall.)
• A SportScience Smarter Short Sleeve T-Shirt (We reviewed this shirt last week, however we will not be giving away the one I wear.)
• Hyland's Poison Ivy/Oak relief tablets
• "The Way" movie poster

Getting Ready For A Celebration

In less than two weeks time we will have our 5 year blogiversary. Of course it didn't start out as Appalachia & Beyond, it started out at Robin & Tim's Outdoor Adventures, or something like that. It was back in 2010 that we changed it to Appalachia & Beyond and gave it all a nice make over, but I digress...

Early Celebration Giveaway(5.11 Tactical Flashlight)

Wow it's already spring and well it's one of our favorite times of year to be out on the trail and/or camping. We've been at this blogging business for a while now and well this year is a bit different. You know this May we will be celebrating five years of blogging, trail reports and destination guides here at Appalachia & Beyond. And while you can expect some cool things to celebrate the occasion, we thought with it being spring and a great time to get out on the trail or in the campgrounds, why not start celebrating a little early.

Photo Courtesy of:
5.11 Tactical

We are lucky enough to begin the celebrations for the upcoming anniversary by teaming up with 511Tactical  to give away a prize to one of our readers - and it could be you! The prize is an ATAC A2 Flashlight from 511's range of flashlights.

The ATAC A2 is simply designed to be strong, light and bright - the 2AA batteries supply 162 lumens, or just 15 lumens on 'ultra low power' mode.

We're Still Around

First off, let us just wish everyone a very belated Happy February as well as a belated Happy Valentine's Day. From the looks of it, Spring has sprung rather early for the most of us, and it's quite strange. What's unfortunate, is we haven't been able to get out and enjoy it as much as we'd like, but that's quite alright, we've got very good reason, and we shall be changing that all soon enough.

We're pretty sure that all of you are wondering how life is going with a newborn, and we'll be honest in that it's been stressful, pleasurable, nerve-racking, blissful, fearful, and joyous all wrapped into one. We've done quite a bit with little Miss Dinah since she's come into this world. A few weeks back we made a trip up to Cumberland Gap NHP just to get of the house for a while. We had been cooped up for a while and Robin was climbing the walls. Dinah made her first, but likely not last trip to the Iron Furnace at Cumberland Gap. Of course she was oblivious to the whole thing. What did you expect? Infants sleep, a lot. Well, at least when they are feeling well.

First Walk (Not quite a hike)

On New Years Eve day, the weather was phenomenal, and considering it was likely going to be the last pretty day for a little while we decided to take full advantage of it and get out for a bit. Granted we've been out a couple times since the wee little one arrived almost two weeks ago, it's not been any getting out that we wanted to do. It seems that when you go out because you have to it feels more like a chore than it does anything else regardless if you've been cooped up for any length of time (just ask Robin). It was different this time. Yes, we did hit the big local box mart but not before we got outside and filled our lungs with some much needed fresh air.

She's Finally Here

Everyone, let us introduce our newest addition to the family. Miss Dinah Marie Bird made her entrance into this world and stole all our hearts in an instant, at 5:56am on the morning of December 20, 2011. She weighed in at a very healthy 8lbs. 14.2oz. (I don't know what those ultra-light folks would say? :P) and measured 21 1/4in.

We promise to get better quality pictures of her posted once we get into a groove but right now we are all taking our time absorbing every little moment with her at this time as it will only last so long. So if you don't hear from us for a while I'm sure you can all understand.

Happy Trails,
Tim and Robin

Just Waiting on a Sign: FGR 12/9/2011

Well another week has come and gone and still our newest addition has decided she's not quite done yet. So we continue to anxiously await, with a certain nervous excitedness, her arrival. It won't be much longer now. Hopefully by the end of the weekend we will have the news posted somewhere, everywhere. Wouldn't that be fantastic. We like to think so, and I know you all think so too as you all wait patiently with us. Until that time though, here's something else to get all excited about...Yep that's right, another edition of the FGR. If we can't have a baby yet, let's win some gear instead.

First up is a sweet giveaway. We all love to keep our tootsies nice and toasty warm, especially on these cold winter morning, when there's frost on everything. Well for the next week, you have a chance to get entered for a prize pack of 12 pairs of Goodhew socks. That's 12 pair of their best selling socks. If you remember correctly Robin won two pair along with her Vasque Taku GTX from the Outdoor Blogger Network and even did a review on them. These are great socks, and the good folks over at The Adventure Post, will hook up one lucky winner with 12 pairs. You can enter with a comment, or tweet daily and there's another bonus entry  you can get if you say something about it on Facebook. You have until December 16th to get those comments in, so don't delay. Head over to the giveaway post for all the rest of the warm and fuzzies.

Happy December to All and Thank You

Happy December to all and once again thank you to all our readers and supporters for making Appalachia & Beyond what it is today. It's hard to believe that we just have under a month before 2011 is over and we'll be ringing in the New Year 2012. However, before I get to far ahead of myself and let this post run away into a post that should not be as of yet, let me get down to the business that this post is all about. It is December after all and as a tradition we've held since I think the first of the year, it's time to give thanks, love, shoutouts, to the blogs, bloggers, and webmasters who continue to refer readers to us, therefore giving us reason to continue writing. With this special group of people we wouldn't enjoy updating the blog for everyone like we do. So without further ado, Special Thanks goes out to:

GPSTracklog
The Adventures of Tom and Atticus
High on LeConte
Live Free and Hike New Hampshire
Meanderthals
My Life Outdoors
Backpacking North
Outdoor Blogger Network
Section Hiker
Hiking in the Smokys
Two Heel Drive
Cloudhiking and Metro to Mountain
Owl Jones
Mamabug's Nature Photos
Mountain Ultralight
Trail Sherpa
Fat Man of the Mountains
Blue Roads to Hiking Trails
Brian's Backpacking Blog
Hiking in Finland
Travel Country
Hiking Fiasco
Hiking the Trail
Marking My Territory
Take a Hike GPS (The GPS is awesome by the way, Thanks a million.)
New England Outside
Pure Outside
Family Wilds

Again thank you all and thank you to all of our readers and the readers of the above blogs and sites who also read out blog.

Happy Trails,
Tim and Robin

Drum Roll Please...

So we've been teasing you for quite some time now about our upcoming little hiker's nursery. In yesterday's trail report, we even offered a photo that was a small spoiler of what the nursery looks like. As you know the nursery was at one time a full fledged bathroom complete with commode, bathtub, and his/her sinks. It also had a nasty carpet on the floor and beige walls. It is now a nursery fit for a little hiker girl and now we are patiently awaiting Little Ms. Dinah's arrival. If she's anything like Robin and I, she will be late, and stuck in the procrastinators workflow, where she's usually found somewhere between Find Food and Randomly Browse the Internet (with mom of course).

So the moment you've all been waiting for (other than the announcement of her birth) Robin and I proudly give you: Dinah's Nursery.

Happy Trails,
Tim and Robin

Roane County "Run for your Health" 5k report

I really didn't hype this race or anything on Facebook or Twitter like I did when I went to run in the Coalfield 5k or when I ran the Man Run with the kiddo. Maybe it was because I wanted to make sure I met my goal so I didn't want to jinx it by talking it up. More than likely it's just been the fact that we've been so busy with doctors appointments twice a week, baby shower, nesting, etc. etc. With all that's been going on, we really haven't had a whole lot of time to do much in the way of the blog and because of that, the social network aspects of the blog and our lives in general have "suffered?".

Well I don't know that that is totally a bad thing, you know not spending the majority of our time on Facebook, Twitter, Google +.... you get the drift. After all, we are outdoor bloggers and Robin's been on to me for quite sometime about this social networking addiction I have. Something along the lines of, "people will see right through you if all you do is spend time on Twitter and Facebook. How can you enjoy the outdoors like you blog about if you are consumed?" Yes, the lesson is definitely being learned. Because I've not put so much time in front of the computer, I can tell a difference in myself and in the relationship with the family. I'm more present and I can tell they like it.

Why no posts??

I know what you're asking... "Hey Appalachia and Beyond! Where've you been?? Don't you do anything fun anymore?!?" Well, to be quite honest, we've been really busy with baby, and I suppose it's time for me to air out the nest a little bit. There's been quite a bit going on that we've kept to ourselves - or rather, I've made Tim keep to ourselves - mainly because I've been hoping it would clear up on it's own, blow over, go away, miraculously disappear, etc.

But now it's time to realize that it's not going to be so. Because of that, we want our readers to know that if they sense a lack of involvement on our part, it's only because we are being very diligent and involved in the health of our baby girl. There are certain things I can't do right now - and certain things Tim doesn't want to do without me because he feels the need to stick close to home in case we need him. All of this is so very new to me.

Our First Trail Post On Trail Sherpa

As some of you may know, we are contributors for TrailSherpa.com. We were invited by Tim Miner to join the team of contributors and we gladly accepted as it would be a mutually beneficial relationship. Well our first trail report has just been posted on the site. This trail is the Ewing Trail up to White Rocks in Cumberland Gap National Historic Park.

Once you see the trail report, you might be wondering, "How on Earth did Robin make it up that trail and 8 months pregnant?" We did this trail last year and decided since we haven't been out on the trail since our trip to Judge Branch, we'd do a write up on White Rocks. We hadn't done a report for this hike because we hiked up to White Rocks well before the "Blog Revitalization" effort back in October last year.



Anyway, head on over to TrailSherpa.com and check out our report. While you're there, if you aren't already a member, sign up and join the fun. There's plenty of like minded people who love the outdoors and hiking. You won't be disappointed.

Happy Trails,
Tim and Robin