Happy Memorial Day! I bet the weather is hot and sunny in SC... We are still experiencing what is known as "mud season" here. Honestly, we lucked out with some good weather the first couple of weeks after our arrival, and now our luck has run out! It has been, for the most part, dreary and gray with occasional rain, hail, and snow. This season is really important for Jackson, though, because the summer is generally VERY dry and sunny. For comparison, Charleston receives 51" of precipitation per year, and Jackson receives 15". Obviously, it is a dry climate here. The rain is important to make the forests moist before there is a long period of dryness and higher temperatures. (Fun fact: Snow King was actually created from a wildfire!) In addition to the wetness, the high has been barely getting up to 50... pretty chilly for it being almost June. It is supposed to take a turn for the better starting tomorrow, which I think we are all really looking forward to!

It mostly rains in town, but you can clearly see on surrounding hills when the snow starts! And yes, that is a cloud hovering right on top of Snow King.

Even though it is tempting to stay indoors when the weather is like this, we have tried to get out and about. William has been riding his bike to and from work (which I can't say I would ever do in this weather) and on Saturday we went to the Old West Brew Fest. The Brew Fest was just a local beer festival... Pretty small in comparison to some others we have been to, but it was a lot of fun! We also saw quite a few people from Columbia, so that was fun as well. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it, but I'm not sure they'd be much to look at anyways.

Yesterday, we decided we owed Sammie (and ourselves) some good exercise and headed out to a trail. I didn't think I would ever be out (voluntarily) hiking in 39°, rainy/snowy weather, but I did it, and it really wasn't that bad. We saw a couple of other crazy people on the trail, too. No bear sightings yet, but William likes to make it a point to start yelling "Hey, Bear" when we aren't talking much. This is what you are supposed to do, but it freaks me out and worries me! He also carried his new holster of bear spray. Anyways, fear of bears aside, the trail was very pretty and had tons of wildflowers. We had a good time and avoided busting our butts in the mud, which was fortunate. There were some close calls.