Day 3 - The Blue Ridge

Now, seriously, how gorgeous is this?!?

This is a picture of the Blue Ridge Mountains just before sunrise in October of 2004. This was my morning view after a very long sleepless night during my first overnight backpacking trip.

I slept SO good the next night in my own bed. :)

I took this backpacking trip with three good friends: my aforementioned outdoorsy pal, Bob, my roommate here in VA, Glenda, and my hiking buddy and very good friend, Paul. Oh, and my dog, Neema. :)

I was the only one of the crew who had not backpacked before. Bob and Paul planned the trip and the menu. And they carried most of our supplies, including a tent. We drove south to Buena Vista to tackle the short, but just-strenuous-enough hike to Mount Pleasant. There were two vistas - we admired the west summit with a lot of other folks and then we headed to the east summit. There was no one else there and we set up camp. Paul had carried the tent and set it up - but no one was going to sleep in it! Bob and Glenda were set on sleeping in their bags on the actual summit. Paul wanted to sleep on the ground outside of the tent. Neema and I were not going to let that tent go to waste! We took it! :)

Paul promised to wake me before sunrise. I really believe that I did not fall asleep until like 30 minutes before he woke me up. Hate that!

But the sunrise was spectacular. And I got to see first hand why the Blue Ridge is named so.

This picture was taken with my Canon Rebel 35mm film camera. My first 'real' camera. :)