Memorial Day Weekend

Summer is here and I'm rounding out the end of intern year with an easy rotation: Geriatrics!  I've learned a lot about myself intern year, but most recently I've learned that I need to be pretty fast-paced and, well, you can imagine Geriatrics is the opposite of that.  But I'm enjoying the extra sleep and free weekends!  It's been about 7 months since I've had a nice schedule!  Winston and I have spent a lot of time outside enjoying the weather, and I've planted some new plants on my back porch since my other ones didn't grow in the dirt I stole (should have listened to you, dad).

Radishes on the way!  Hopeful my pot is big enough!

More importantly, a nice scheduled month means more time to see Stu!  He came up from Thursday night to Monday afternoon over Memorial Day Weekend!  We had so much time together we didn't know what to do with ourselves!  Unfortunately I had to work Friday, but I got done pretty early and we headed out to Fridays After Five with some friends.  I didn't want to carry my camera out to that, but we had a great time watching a free concert even though it was a bit chilly for a May night, and then went out with some friends afterward.

Saturday morning we got up somewhat bright and early and headed out for a 9.5 mile hike!!  Stuart (I love him but he's kind of crazy) is training for a 35 (THIRTY FIVE) mile hike later this June.  It's the day after I finish intern year and I originally thought I'd celebrate by hiking ... until I found out how long it was.  Anyway, we wanted to make sure we got in a good hike during his weekend here to help him prepare.

This turned out to be probably my favorite hike we've gone on.  It's a pretty long distance but definitely do-able in 1 day.  There is literally no one on the trail - it's about as far in the wilderness as you can get.  We saw a few people towards the end of the hike, but given that it was a holiday weekend it was overall pretty deserted.  We're so lucky to be in a place where there is an infinite amount of hiking trails!

We even brought Winston along.  I was concerned about the length of the trail, but it turns out he did a lot better than I did - especially on the steep grades.  Oh well.

There was a lot of great scenery - for instance this huge beaver dam!  I have a feeling on the right day you could probably catch some deer or bears.  We just saw a lot of squirrels and butterflies.

gnawed logs

The first three miles of the hike followed the Staunton River.  Kind of tiny for a river, but it had a lot of nice pools and small waterfalls.

There were even a few stream crossings!  Winston got real nervous the first time and Stuart had to carry him across.  But after that (and after he got hot) he didn't mind hopping right in!

"C'mon mom!" Winston seemed to say several times while I was lagging behind.  The last 1.5 miles of the trail was literally a 45 degree grade.  Kind of exhausting for those of us "ahem" who aren't in shape!

After branching away from the Staunton River we joined the Jones Mountain Trail.  It's so named because the Jones family used to live on this mountain many moons ago.  I don't know too much about the history other than if you get lucky you can spot some of the things they left behind: graveyards, and even a (now refurbished) cabin.

If I could figure out (1) what these are and (2) when they are in bloom, I would climb the 9.5 miles again to see it!

Almost at the peak we happened upon this nice little rock outcropping with a semi-obstructed view of the Blue Ridge mts.

Here starts the toughest part of the hike - 45 degree grades!  It didn't stop until you were at the top.

And THEN - we were finally at the top!  We actually missed the clearing, called Bear Church Rock, and had to turn around and come back.  As the tops of mountains tend to be, it was pretty windy!  Windy is actually an understatement.  We couldn't hear each other talk and surely couldn't enjoy our picnic without the risk of our salami blowing away!  We stayed up there as long as we could without falling over, then headed back down the trail the easy (downhill) way.

Poor Winston

Closest I've been to dying in a while

Not the most lovely of pictures, but had to take one at the summit!

The way back down was a heck of a lot easier - which was good since my legs were like jello.  We stopped along the way to go see the Jones Mountain Cabin and we were surprised to see a fire going and a lady brushing her teeth off the front porch.  I think they were equally surprised to see us.  You can apparently rent the cabin for a nice retreat from it all.  We didn't stay too long and I didn't make too many pictures because that seemed a bit strange since there were people in it.

Winston worked up quite a thirst on the trail!  Don't worry - that was his own bottle.  We came back down a bit from the summit and stopped for our picnic so our salami and nutella wouldn't blow away down the side of the mountain.

Look at Winston go!  Fording that river!

The way home was a beautiful country drive.  Stuart humored me and let me stop and take pictures.  First was of the only deer we saw that day.  At first she was so still I thought she was a fake to scare off the birds in the pasture, but then she flicked her ear back and forth.  Second is one of my all-time favorite barns.

That night we went out to dinner with some friends for Moroccan tapas!  I've been trying to convince Stuart that we want to take a foodie vacation to Morocco, and I think I may have convinced him with this dinner!  Oh man it was good!

And of course I'd like to think we made some pretty good food too!  We made French toast with buckwheat-pear bread and some sauteed bananas.  Then we packed a picnic to go watch a polo match on Sunday.  Unfortunately the ground was too wet for the horses to be safe, so we just enjoyed the sun and petted a few horses in the stall.  And of course took some pictures at the beautiful vineyard!

We got a little spoiled spending so much time together!  Fortunately I get TWO weeks of vacation this month.  This week we'll be going to see our families in Mississippi and Alabama, then in two weeks we celebrate the end of intern year with BEACH WEEK!!!!!!  Stu and I will be joining 18 of my fellow interns in Charleston.  Should be a blast.  Stay tuned.