The last two weekends

I have been slacking a little bit. We have been hiking, gone to a football game and we went camping in Virginia and I haven't posted about it yet!

We went to Oregon Ridge Park and went hiking. This park is not very far from our apartment and its nice to be able to get to hike without having to drive a long way.

We went to the pre-season Ravens game against the Vikings. Unfortunately the Ravens lost the game. It was fun anyway. There were lots of people there, even though it was just a pre-season game. After half-time the place cleared out.

This last weekend we went to Westmoreland State Park in Virginia. Its right along the Potomac River between where George Washington was born and Robert E. Lee was born. The Potomac is very wide there, it almost looks like the Chesapeake Bay. On the beaches along the river you can find sharks teeth and dolphin teeth from the Miocene Era. We didn't have any luck finding any. When we were down by the river, the weather was quite nice because there was a breeze, but when we took our hike through the woods and swamp it was very humid and hot. Eventhough it was hot, it was a very nice time.

You can find more pictures here: http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r53/klub0002/Camping%20and%20Hiking/

South Dakota

August 8 - 13th we went and visited the Klubers in Chamberlain, South Dakota. We flew into Chicago where we met my brother, his wife and their daughter. We all flew to Sioux Falls, rented a car and drove to Chamberlain - that takes about 2 hours.

On the 10th John and I took off for a day and a half in the Badlands, Rapid City and the Black Hills. This is where I grew up and I showed John my old house, school and where I used to hang out. We then drove to Hill City where we were staying for the night. After we checked in we drove to Mt. Rushmore and watched the lighting. It was very patriotic.

The next day we drove the Needles Highway and hiked up to Little Devil's Tower and saw the view. I mistook the trail for going straight up the mountain and crawled up there - I should have looked to the right - that's where the trail really went. The view was tremendous - from the wrong way up the trail and from the right way!

We had a lot of fun visiting with everyone. And yes, we all tried on cowboy hats (they were my dad's and Trav's).

You can find more pictures of our trip at: http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r53/klub0002/

Spelunkers!

Ever since we moved to Baltimore, I have been wanting to go to the Luray Caverns in Luray, Virginia. This weekend we finally went. This cave was huge and had some really neat formations.

The cave temperature was a constant 54 degrees. John bought me a sweatshirt at the gift shop before we went down into the cave so I wouldn't freeze. The tour took about an hour and we went down 168 feet at the deepest point.

In this cave there is also a "stalagcpipe" organ. A guy invented a way to hit the stalagtites to create a specific tone. They had it play a song automatically (like a player piano). It was pretty cool. Sometimes they have weddings down there - 500 so far since the cave opened to the public.

After the cave adventure we went to Luray to have lunch and then hopped over to the Shenandoah National Park and got to see some great views. We went to Shenandoah National Park 3 years ago - they raised the price to get in by $5.00! Outrageous. The views were worth it, though.

Along the park is Skyline Drive that you can drive down the whole park (101 miles) - we entered at the 30 mile mark and drove north to zero. Its such a nice drive. The Appalachian Trail also crosses the road quite a few times. Unfortunately it was raining a little bit so we didn't go for a hike.