Weaverton Road to Garvey Shelter

This Saturday we hiked the Appalachian Trail from Weaverton Road to the Garvey Shelter (3 miles), unfortunately we do not have two cars, so it was an in and out hike (total of 6 miles). The guide book that I have for the Maryland section of the AT says that this section of the trail has an elevation change of 576 feet that is comprised of 16 switchbacks. We only counted 15, but we were tired by the time we got back to them. After you have hiked the initial 576 feet you get this view:
This is the Potomac River, Virginia to the left, West Virginia to the right and Maryland in the foreground. The last time we were in this area, the river was much more turbulent, but this time it is really calm and pretty low.

After the side-trail to the view over Weaverton Cliff we continued on to the shelter. There is another 200 feet of elevation, but it is over about 1.5 miles, so it is pretty gradual. About half way, we felt like we had enough of this dang mountain! But like good hikers we took a break and soldiered on.

At three miles we came to the Garvey Shelter. It was an impressively nice place. There is a loft, a fire pit, a water source that is down a steep slope and an outhouse! This place was like the taj mahal of camping shelters. Inside there is a log book that people sign and write stories in. It was pretty interesting to read. Some people had seen bears, others wrote about where they had come from and where they were going.

After a little break we headed back to the car. We ran across a lot more people on the way back. There were quite a few boy scout troups and groups of people enjoying the lovely day. As a reward we drove into Harpers Ferry (3 miles) for frozen custard (I had vanilla and pumpkin twist) and a shake (John had peanut butter cup/vanilla).

We are slowly, but surely attacking the AT. Right now we have gone 3 miles on the southern end of the Maryland section and 3.1 miles on the northern section. One day we'll meet ourselves in the middle!

Wheeeeeee!

This weekend we decided to go to an amusement park - King's Dominion in Richmond, VA. We left on Sunday morning, its about a 2.5 hour drive. We arrived at the hotel, checked in and got our tickets. I found a deal on the internet through our hotel to get tickets there instead of at the park: less time waiting in line.

There are lots of great roller coasters there: Rebel Yell, Hurler, Grizzly, Dominator and Volcano. There are also a few more, we tried to hit as many as we could. We were there from 11:00 am to 8:00 pm and we didn't get a chance to go on all of them. At first, the lines were not very bad - maybe a 10 minute wait, on the Hurler there wasn't even enough people in line to fill up the ride. As the day got sunnier and warmer, the more people came. By the time we got to the Volcano the wait was 1 hour! (I timed it - if the wait had been posted somewhere I doubt I would have wanted to stand in line.) But, the ride was totally worth it. It was so fast and twisty and its one of those roller coasters where your feet hang down. Very fun.After all the roller coasters we went to the waterpark that's attached and sat in the lazy river. We went around twice. Some people who got into the lazy river didn't realize it was a LAZY river and they were quite rowdy. But it was a nice relaxing end to a very fun day.

We went to TIGFriday's next door to our hotel for supper and realized that our necks had been thrown around quite a bit on the rides - Oh man!

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!

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.

Blazin' Hot

Well, the last couple of weeks here have been to hot to do much of anything. So, we have been stuck in the house. And because of the boredom, poor Chopper suffers:

Don't worry, he only had to wear the pink t-shirt for about an hour. When John got home he took it off of Chopper.

I have been busy knitting a birthday gift for our friends' daughter's 2nd birthday. It took me about a week to knit and I think it turned out pretty well:

Hopefully the weather lets up a bit and we can get outside for some more adventures. I know Chopper certainly hopes so!

Babies and Fireworks

For the Fourth of July weekend John and I went to visit his family in Milwaukee, WI. We hadn't seen our niece and nephew (Kayla and Evan) since Christmas and boy have they gotten big! They are even tailgating at baseball games.

On the Fourth of July we went to a parade in Cedarburg - it was quite a parade and had everything from dogs to horses to a polka band on a trailer. The day was beautiful and sunny, probably one of the most pleasant 4th of Julys I have ever had. The fireworks in West Bend were great and there were tons of people ooooh-ing and ahhhh-ing.

On Saturday we went to a pool party at Shaun and Heather's house. The have a beautiful back yard and pool. Unfortunately, I was having so much fun I forgot to get a picture - but trust me it was great. Later that night we went to Adam's to have a barbecue and play Guitar Hero (as a matter of fact just about every night ended in Guitar Hero and I learned that I am woefully inadequate as a player and I need to practice more!)

Kayla's in training already!

On Sunday we went to the Brewer's game - they were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates. They won quite handily and it was a very fun day - a little hot sitting in the sun, but still fun.

I just want to thank Pete, Erica and Evan for being such great hosts and to the whole Anderson clan for showing us a great time!