A Blue Ridge Road Trip (Pt. 1)

The third weekend in July is always family reunion time on my mom's side of the family. Every third Sunday in July, the Patteson Clan gather for fun, food, and reminiscing at Glenwood Park in Princeton, WV. Seeing how Dinah was new to the family, and all my aunts absolutely love to see her we decided we would go to the reunion this year. As an added bonus, I thought it would be fun if on the way back home we spent a couple days driving down the Blue Ridge Parkway. The four of us (Tim, Robin, Ashby, and Dinah) as a family doing a mini version of the vacations Robin took as a kid with her family.

Once the reunion was over, or rather close to the time people were starting to leave, we loaded back up into our SUV and we were Blue Ridge bound. We had made arrangements to stay over night at the Allegheny Inn in Sparta, NC shortly after making it to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We got all checked in and hung out for a little bit before going out in search of food. The Allegheny Inn was a wonderful motel, located in the heart of the quaint downtown of Sparta, North Carolina and only 15 minutes from the Blue Ridge Parkway, where we would begin our adventure on the next day. Unfortunately, our adventure wouldn't begin without some sort of hiccup.

SteriPEN and Outdoor Retailer

I know it's been a while since you last heard from us. We've been ultra busy the past couple of weeks, complete with a family reunion and a two day road trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway which included stops at Blowing Rock and Grandfather Mountain. There will be more about that in two separate posts in over the next few days. For now, we just wanted to let you know we are all well, trying to stay cool, and staying super busy with baby and all. Now to the heart of the matter.

As some of you know, especially those in the outdoor blogorealm, the Summer Outdoor Retailer (OR) show is coming up this week and there's a few of you that will be heading out to see what great "Newfangeled" (a termed used by Robin) technology will be released in the fall of this year as well as the Spring of 2013. You'll be among the first of the outdoor lovers to drool over these items in person. For us however, we will not be making it to OR. Maybe one day they will decided to have OR in places other than Utah (Tennessee would be great :D). Until then we have to sit back and wait for all our blogging pals to post their stories on the new gear and happenings from OR.

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

Race Report - 2012 Cove Lake 5k

Hers:
I'm patting myself on the back right now. You want to know why? Because I completed my first 5K! Yup. The "un-runner," the introvert, the non-competitor, the girl afraid of crowds, and (most recently) the injured ran her first race, The Cove Lake 5K, on June 16, 2012.

It was interesting to say the least. We began (like every race does) in a crowd of people. At the sound of the gun, we all started jogging at once. I felt like I needed to run ahead of everyone, like something was after us, like zombie apocalypse. After a few minutes though, the crowd thinned out with most everyone in front of me. Apparently, I'm slow. *giggle*