contentment
I had a wonderful weekend up in the mountains (or hills? I guess they're considered mountains... round mountains) of Shenandoah National Park. I guess this is one thing that I do miss out on, not having a car: the ability to get out of the city. Lorin coordinated all of the details and we had a great cabin that slept 12 (there were 14 of us, so some slept outside).
I left work a little early on Friday and drove up with Lorin and one of her coworkers. We got to the parking lot around 8:30 and arrived at the cabin (about half a mile in) with just the faintest bit of daylight left. We put the mattresses on the beds and got a fire going, and had dinner waiting when the rest of the cars arrived around midnight.
I don't have any pictures of the interior of the cabin because it was pitch black and we really only used it for sleeping, but it was a cool place, contructed by the CCC in the 1930s. I read through the log book and it's really cool the way people communicate with future hikers who they will never meet... sharing tips on how to outsmart the mice, or where to find more wood for the fire. There were also notes from PATC volunteers, letting us know that a new woodstove had been installed and requesting that people pack out as many pieces of the old stove as possible. Previous hikers left behind some useful supplies, like matches and candles, and some supplies that were not so useful, like pancake mix and a bottle of syrup. The log entries ranged from the extremely detailed ("heartrate normal. urine volume low but working on getting rehydrated") to the short and humorous ("had great weather. jodie farted a lot."). I took pictures of a couple of the pages (uploaded to Flickr).
We got kind of a late start the next day and after a late breakfast, the whole group headed down to the upper falls which were about a mile down the trail. It was very pretty. The weather was perfect the whole weekend: highs in the low 80s and lows in the mid 60s. Saturday night we stayed up late again playing Taboo, making fancy smores with Andes mints and mini Reeses peanut butter cups, and passing around Lorin's Haitian rum.
Several yards in front of the cabin was a rock ledge perfect for sitting, thinking, stargazing, and napping:
The wildlife count for the weekend: 3 deer, 4 bears, 1 snake, evidence of 1 mouse, lots of butterflies, moths, and gnats, but no mosquitos.
I left work a little early on Friday and drove up with Lorin and one of her coworkers. We got to the parking lot around 8:30 and arrived at the cabin (about half a mile in) with just the faintest bit of daylight left. We put the mattresses on the beds and got a fire going, and had dinner waiting when the rest of the cars arrived around midnight.
I don't have any pictures of the interior of the cabin because it was pitch black and we really only used it for sleeping, but it was a cool place, contructed by the CCC in the 1930s. I read through the log book and it's really cool the way people communicate with future hikers who they will never meet... sharing tips on how to outsmart the mice, or where to find more wood for the fire. There were also notes from PATC volunteers, letting us know that a new woodstove had been installed and requesting that people pack out as many pieces of the old stove as possible. Previous hikers left behind some useful supplies, like matches and candles, and some supplies that were not so useful, like pancake mix and a bottle of syrup. The log entries ranged from the extremely detailed ("heartrate normal. urine volume low but working on getting rehydrated") to the short and humorous ("had great weather. jodie farted a lot."). I took pictures of a couple of the pages (uploaded to Flickr).
We got kind of a late start the next day and after a late breakfast, the whole group headed down to the upper falls which were about a mile down the trail. It was very pretty. The weather was perfect the whole weekend: highs in the low 80s and lows in the mid 60s. Saturday night we stayed up late again playing Taboo, making fancy smores with Andes mints and mini Reeses peanut butter cups, and passing around Lorin's Haitian rum.
Several yards in front of the cabin was a rock ledge perfect for sitting, thinking, stargazing, and napping:
The wildlife count for the weekend: 3 deer, 4 bears, 1 snake, evidence of 1 mouse, lots of butterflies, moths, and gnats, but no mosquitos.
Comments
What did you make for dinner?
Mom