Raige Creations

Sometimes the clouds give us peace and clarity.  A cloud happened to pass right through us while we were at the summit of Craggy Pinnacle the other day . The quiet peace at the top of a mountain with the clouds all around is a moment where I found peace, and clarity.  You are quite encased, enclosed, just you and your head. The other clutter is not there, you are free to find out where you really are, and where you really want to be. It is often a moment that passes far too fast.  Don't ever worry of being accused of having your head in the clouds - it is an experience we all should enjoy as much as possible.  After all, Thoreau was onto something. The atmosphere below the clouds is not always paradise ~ the clouds can offer us insight we can achieve no other way.  Have you ever enjoyed your head in the clouds?

When a young girl in Africa heard that her teacher would be leaving their village, she wanted to give her a special gift.  The girl didn't have any money to buy a present for her teacher, but finally she decided what she would do.   The Long Walk photo: Raige Creations at Craggy Pinnacle She was gone for two days and when she returned she was carrying the most exquisite shell anyone in her village had ever seen. Her teacher was amazed.  "Where did you get this?" she asked. The child told her that such shells were found only on a certain faraway beach. The teacher was deeply touched, because she knew that the girl had walked many miles to find the shell. "You shouldn't have traveled so far just to find a gift for me," she said. The girl smiled and explained, "The long walk is part of the gift." The Tree and the Rock photo:  Raige Creations  at  Craggy Pinnacle It is an old story, one I read probably 30 years ago in Reader's Dig...

This song came up over dinner. It is funny how slight word combinations can bring up songs, and then dinner takes a turn.  It happened something like this: I had picked up some macaroni and cheese from the deli at the grocery store for dinner.  (I made a kick-butt Kung-Pao Chicken last night and didn't have the gumption to be too creative for dinner tonight. Thus, it was grocery store deli dinner night) This mac-n-cheese was loaded. It had ham and broccoli in it, which sounded like it would be a hit. But when my son was coerced into trying some, he picked through it to find just the broccoli.  Mind you, the broccoli was well mixed in, and therefore appeared as little green dots throughout the mac-n-cheese. Once in a while, you would get a big chunk of it, but mostly it appeared as little tiny specks.  We knew he loved broccoli, and ham. So we were teasing him for picking through the dish to find the tiny specks of broccoli, and saying after each bite e...

Yesterday, I talked about Craggy Gardens  (read it here) , right off the Blue Ridge Parkway , about 9 miles from our house. It was beautiful, and we met some great hikers and Tiny the Inchworm. They told us about the Craggy Pinnacle Hike and we were on our way there when I left off. Tiny was pointing the way. He joined us in the car for the ride to the parking area. Tiny the Inchworm pointing to Craggy Pinnacle, the pointy mountain in the background. We drove through Craggy Pinnacle Tunnel, one of the shorter tunnels on the parkway. I couldn't take a picture while driving, and didn't think about stopping to take a picture at that time, still resting from the previous hike and thinking about the hike to come. I now wish I had, but I was lucky enough to find this picture, just where we drove, on Flickr.com.  Craggy Pinnacle Tunnel via Mike_tn on Flickr.com Once we got to the parking area, Tiny the Inchworm was left at his new home in one of the bushes, and we turned out at...

It isn't every day you can say 'I'm on top of the world' and literally be a mile high, completely feeling like you ARE on top of the world. We got to last Saturday. View from Craggy Pinnacle The kids were on Spring Break last week, and I wanted us to do something fun, something cheap if not free, and special. Since we can't take a trip for vacation (see cheap mentioned above) due to limited funds, and my oldest having to work several days of the week, it had to be local. Luckily, we happen to live in a mountain range that offers hikes and views that are incredible. We went for a hike last fall and that was such a wonderful day everyone was willing to hike again, but this time wanted to try a different hike.  We decided to pick an easy hike close to home. Craggy Gardens.   It is almost like going on vacation, but is only 9 miles from our house. Tunnels through the Rhododendron's The trail was said to be an 'easy' one, and only 1.4 miles, a...