Monday, May 07, 2007

One false step

Yes...one small step and it would have been curtins f0r Jimmy & I today. The heights I go to get pictures of wild flowers is going to be the death of us...I'm getting too old for this, but we have had lots of fun for the last two days. It has been nice and sunny and yesterday we rode our bikes to Natural Bridge State Park and got some wonderful pictures of Mountain Laurel just beginning to bloom...But I'll save that post for another time.
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Today we rode our bikes south to Pine Mountain State Park in Pinville, Kentucky. We were going to see if perhaps south of us the Mountain Laurel was in full bloom, but it was just in the budding stages there.
What we did find was Rhododendrons everywhere, just as in Natural Bridge. Most had been bitten by the freeze in April and were not blooming here either...so we thought. The Rhodies were everywhere scattered in between Mountain Laurel, also not blooming. The picture above is a Rhodie.
Since we didn't find any flowers blooming here we decided to hike around. Above is a picture of us high up in the mountain looking down on the city of Pineville. Pineville is close to the Tennessee & Virginia borders.

Here is a walkway to an overlook where I snapped the picture overlooking Pineville. You can see a metal railing attached on top of a great big boulder at the end of the path. Jimmy was standing at the overlook first, while I was busy snapping pictures along the way, when he spotted it....or them! And wouldn't you know it, the only Rhodies in bloom were on the edge of the cliff with brush and other trees in the way. We could barely see them thru the bushes & small trees that were growing on the rocks. I tried to get a picture from the overlook, but to no avail.


See the railing in the upper left of the above picture? I came over the railing and down this rock very carefully to another big rock. I was determined to get closer to the blooming Rhodie for a picture. When I got closer I could see more blooms off in the distance, but I only wanted to get near enough for a picture.


Here I am hanging on to a very small maple tree...more like a twig. I can't move in any direction because there is no where to move but back. I tried to take a picture and why I didn't think to zoom in, with my very limited zoom, I don't know. Was it because I was concentrating more on hanging on to the little maple tree and watching my feet that were right on the edge?


I tried aiming my camera in different directions taking many pics of this same bush and could tell that I wasn't going to get a very good picture when suddenly Jimmy was right by my side, saying, "Honey be careful! Let me move some of the branches out of your way." He has very long arms and we both clung to the same little maple branch for support...with nothing in front of us but a very long way down and some bushes to break our fall.


Now see...Jimmy did a good job holding the branches out of the way. He tries to help me as much as he can....He's so sweet and he knew that I wanted to put these up on my blog to show you guys.


These are the same Rhodies...I just wanted to show you the rest of the bush that hasn't bloomed out yet. This mountainside should be breathtaking once all the bushes all blooming. While taking pics of this bush only my arm with camera in hand was moving around for the different shots...I was standing as still as I possibly could.
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Once back on the path and as we were walking away from the lookout, Jimmy said,"I never gave it much thought before, but you would have to be out here with someone you really trusted because you could have easily pushed me over the edge or visa versa."
I wonder why he didn't think of that yesterday? We hiked much higher and were on the edges of rock cliffs several times...but maybe not in such a vulnerable position and in such close proximity to each other.




9 comments:

Rachel said...

Sandy, you two had better be careful doing that!! A picture isn't worth one slip and over the hill you go like Jack and Jill! I shutter at the thought!! Jimmy knows how you are about your pictures!

I'm glad you two have been out and about and enjoying this nice weather though, plus enjoying the wildflowers!

Thanks for this nice post, but it made me nervous and I wasn't even there!! How about taking a rope along for support next time and tie it to something sturdy. Something more sturdy than a small twig of a tree for heaven's sake!!!

TUFFENUF said...

What some people will do to get the perfect photo! Be careful, you need to take along some climbing ropes!

LZ Blogger said...

Sandy - This looks beautiful! I'll have to make a visit and do a post on it someday! ~ jb///

Jellyhead said...

Oh, Sandy, you had me on the edge of my seat wih this post - even though I knew it would (obviously) all turn out fine in the end!

Please be careful! We love to see the flowers you snap, but not at the cost of bones snapped as well!

Val said...

Dear girl, flowers are not THAT important! Glad you're back in one piece.

tomlaureld@yahoo.com said...

My heart is in my mouth, my cheeks are very rosy and I am about to faint after reading that post.

Susan Tidwell said...

It was worth it! The first rhodies I have seen this year, thanks!

Tammy said...

What "brave" souls ya'll are...wanting us to see those flowers bad enough to "risk your lives"!!!
Don't do that anymore ya hear?
I would rather hear about anything mundane as to hear you are up in traction in some hospital somewhere...
Goodness people!!!

Alipurr said...

maybe we should all pool our pennies and get sandy a camera with a more powerful zoom :)

you guys really like to live on the edge, don't you!!! :)