what took me so long?

i knew it'd been awhile, but three months? egads. i'd love to tell you my hiatus was due to extensive world travel (ok, spain and morocco) or my whirlwind romance with val kilmer (who won't even return my calls), but it's actually something far less exciting: i've become horribly lazy.

ok- maybe not that lazy, but after taking work, sleep, and this new treadmill habit i've developed (so as not to scare small children in the event i wind up on a beach in a bikini), i've got about an hour and a half of free time daily....and since it takes me a while to pound out a post, i'm afriad the blog has fallen by the wayside. (at least the porno spam has settled down a little, though.)

anyway, i recently read in some women's fitness magazine (either shape or self- i have subscriptions to both) about the hazards of developing "treadmill butt". from what i recall from the blurb in the magazine, since one uses a slightly different motion on the treadmill than when pounding pavement (more of a "bounding" to avoid flying off the back of the treadmill, as opposed to striding to actually propel oneself forward), too much treadmill time can lead to a flat butt.

so, since i'm on the treadmill several times a week (though at an incline, which hopefully helps to combat the problem), i've been going hiking/walking after work on saturdays. since SO has been unavailable the last couple of weeks, i've spent a couple of hours after my saturday shift walking a 3-mile stretch of the three rivers greenway, which i can access on my way home from work. (to borrow from the church lady- which is only appropriate on a sunday, i suppose- how conveeeeeenient.)

here's a handy map for your reference:



i've been parking at the dams and lock at the northern end of the trail,




and walking south, toward (and a little bit beyond, actually) the remains of the state penitentiary and the waterworks (to the right and left in the photo below, respectively)



i'd love to go further on the trail, but it crosses an active power plant, which is closed on the weekends, as i was informed by a helpful park ranger at the beginning of my walk, right after he crossed my path as i was walking out of the wrong restroom. (to be fair, i'd only glanced at the sign, and while i wondered why the seat is up and there wasn't any toilet paper floating in the yellow water, i decided there must have been a line to the men's room (i know, i know- like that ever happens) and someone didn't want to wait.)

it took me about two hours to cover the six miles, though when you factor in the time spent snapping 76 photos (really? i figured i had 20, maybe 25 at the most), i guess that's not too bad.

some other favorites:

wildlife sightings


turtles along the greenway. according to a sign i found, there are at least three different kinds of turtles in the area, including softshell turtles. however, i didn't get close enough to any of them to determine exactly what type they were, aside from "brownish"


this bird was hanging out on the railing across the waterworks levee. i'm no ornithologist*, but i'm guessing it's a crane....


this snake was sunning itself across the sidewalk during my walk back to the dam. i'm not a fan of snakes, but i like to think i've grown- i no longer shriek and run in the other direction when i see one. i'm not sure what this one was, but it didn't have a rattle, white mouth, or red bands, so i figure it was pretty harmless. wish i'd thought to whip out the camera sooner, so i could've gotten the whole thing on film....er....in pixels.

bridges over troubled(?) water


pair of hwy 126 bridges, heading out of downtown columbia. i liked the lines of this when i took it, but must've shifted slightly when i snapped the shot. guess i'll have to take the camera with me next time and try it again.....


broad river road bridge. the original was burned during sherman's march through columbia. i have no idea when this one was built...perhaps at some point, when i have free time or something, i'll look it up.


*i had to look it up, because all that came to mind was "herpetologist", which, contrary to popular belief, is not a scientist who incorporates valtrex into their studies, but one who studies reptiles.

babe (?) in the woods

in an effort to boost the bank accounts and finally get alaska and hawaii back off of my credit card (conditions that i've decided have to be met before i can travel again), i've been burying myself in work lately. unfortunately, i'm starting to burn out a little bit, so SO came up for the weekend and we took advantage of my working only one shift at the radio station yesterday and went hiking at the anne springs close greenway in fort mill, sc (near charlotte).

admission to the park was quite reasonable (as with most of the sc state parks we've been to, the admission is $2 per person. one of these days, i'll get around to ponying up for sc state parks annual pass- sometime after my finances have been straightened out.), and it was easy to find- just a couple of miles away from I-77.

the first trail we tackled was the 1.3 mile loop around lake haigler. while SO took a few minutes to prepare for the hike, i tried to snap a photo of this huge blue heron perched on a log near the shore. unfortunately, the heron heard the leaves crunching underfoot as i crept closer for the perfect shot, and the perfect shot wound up being a perfect shot of an empty log. i still have no idea where the heron flew off to. (pardon the dangling participle- sometimes proper grammar just looks too awkward to attempt.)

i'm afraid i can't share my perfect log picture with you- not because its beauty will stun you, rendering you unable to concentrate on anything else for the rest of the day. i can't share it with you because i was so irritated about the runaway heron that i deleted the photo in a fit of rage.*

instead, you'll have to settle for these:





lest my dad freak out over my hair, let me point out that it's actually in a ponytail. it's gotten within a few inches of my waist, and while i'm going to cut it, it won't exactly be a shearing long enough to send to locks of love, though i briefly considered it......

after we finished hiking around the lake, we headed toward the steele creek/blue star loop. we figured out that this trail added a hair over 3 1/2 miles, giving us about five for the day, altogether. (i believe that means what i'm currently feeling is about 2 1/2 miles in the back of each thigh- ugh. fortunately, i've managed to convince myself that it's a "good" pain and means my upper thighs/derriere no longer resemble the skin of an albino orange.)


fellow hikers. perhaps hot dog (with backpack) will post about our hike over on his brother bodhi's blog


one of the perks of hiking in the fall. even down here in south carolina, the leaves change color. this was after we passed the dairy barn and crossed old nation road.


at the old railroad trestle. i like this picture so much that i shrank (shrunk?) it down for my msn messenger photo.

the park features a mix of hiking, biking and horse trails. the trails we were on were fairly well maintained, though not always clearly marked...unless you count the "organic cairns" left behind by this guy....






*well, not exactly rage- more like frustration, really

wait a minute- logs don't have eyes....do they?

after wasting three saturdays in a row (only three?), i dragged (well, technically he drove) SO out on a long-overdue hike. santee state park is about an hour and a half from home, which allowed me enough time to wipe out a book (i was almost done) and grab a five minute snooze....which ended about the time we realized we'd somehow overshot the park.

why santee? well, since i work at the radio station until noon on saturdays and SO was barely in the shower when i got home, there was pretty much a zero chance of being able to get up to the waterfall-laden upstate region of south carolina and have enough time to tackle a decent hike and be off the trail by dark. plus, gas in columbia is still a pricey $3.99 a gallon and no, you do not get kissed first. not even a hug, in fact. (i got funny looks when i asked at the local gas station on friday.)

so, we were left with mostly local options....most of which have already been checked off in my handy dandy hiking book.

it should be noted that the handy dandy hiking book might be in need of a little update as, assuming i was reading the map properly, the "swimming pond" looks like this:


(it's probably worth noting that about 100 feet further down the shoreline, if that, there were not one, not two, but three signs advising against swimming and warning of the presence of alligators.)

there was an incident last september where a guy actually disregarded the "no swimming" signs, went snorkeling with a gator, and would up losing an arm, which was retrieved (intact, no less!) from the alligator's stomach. i thought this may have been the "swimming hole" in question, but a little googling proved me wrong.

mr. "snorkels with gators" survived, but i'm thinking he still should get an honorable mention in the next darwin awards book.

SO, was a little uneasy about my trekking down near the water's edge to have a look at the "no swimming" signs. (no worries- they were out in the open, and i would've spotted the gator before he spotted me.)

after leaving the shoreline, we drove to the sinkhole trail for one last mini hike. (with the exception of the bicycle trail, the trails at the park are under a mile long, and at .4 mile, this one's the shortest.) i'm pleased to report there weren't any gators in sight on this trail, which was a good thing, though SO said he had my back in the event of a possible attack: