It's really been a year?

The Original Banner for FFM

It's hard to believe that a year ago today, I made my first post on Foggy Mountain Meanderings. This has blossomed into something bigger than I had ever imagined. It started as somewhere I could track my adventures for myself and have my family members and close friends keep an eye on what I was doing as well as what was happening on Foggy Mountain. Although I have still kept true to my general purpose of that, I have also started doing Gear Reviews, Trail Cam Tuesday, and some what of a regular posting schedule (I'm working on getting back to that). Not only has FMM expanded as far as the content but I purchased our domain earlier this year, and we've even broke into the social media market. You can find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Now onto the stats. In the past year Foggy Mountain Meanderings has had....

• 144 posts
• 334 comments
• 20,743 page views
• 430 Twitter Followers
• 3,119 Tweets
• 41 "Likes" on Facebook

There are a lot of people out there that I'd like to thank, but I'm sure I would end up leaving some out! So instead, I'd like to off a thank you to everyone out there reading this. Now to leave you with a little wisdom from my grandfather which is from my first post here on FFM...

"...it began to hit me that the life I lead in the mountains might not be that ordinary. But for those of you that live and breath the outdoors know what I'm referring to, but those series of events have helped me remember a saying, or more so a motto to live by that my grandfather taught me at a very young age. This is something that I've thought, back then, could be mastered in a childhood, but now as an adult have come to realize that this is something you will never fully grasp, even in a lifetime. That motto is to, "stop and smell the roses." Such a simple little line, something you may have even heard a few times throughout your life, but I beg you to heed this advice. Whether you are hunting, fishing, going for a hike, camping, or even just skipping stones across the river, "Stop and smell the rose" for a while. Life will be there, yet the experience that you will take in, just those few extra moments with the people around you or even by yourself will make memories that will last a lifetime. As for where I learned this; It would have been just another hike with my grandfather, but a quarter of the way into the hike we reached the first bench on our way up the mountain, overlooking a one of the West Virginia valleys that Route 50 runs though, and he told me just stop for a moment. I did, but with a dumbfounded look on my face for sure, I asked him "Why?", knowing that he wasn't tired or in need of a break. And right then, at the ripe ol' age of six, I learned one the most valuable life lessons to date, that I still try to achieve to this day, "...just stop and smell the roses for a while. This trip isn't about getting from start to finish, but about taking everything in along the way." That trip, right then, became a memory that will last a lifetime, just a matter of 30 seconds of explanation and few moments of "stopping and smelling" has left an impression me, my life, and my views for an eternity."