Recap

Okay-I am not dead. And I'm not bored, just sitting at home and watching TV. I have not posted in a while, but I actually have had a lot going on. In the past few months, I moved into DC for a month (which was amazing-living in a big city really is as great as everyone says). I moved out to Vienna VA, permanantely...at least as permanant as any move ever is for me. Spent a week down in Norfolk VA for training (okay-that week, I actually was bored and watching TV-there is nothing to do in Norfolk).

Also, have done some more hiking with friends (and some swimming-you got to when you get hot!!)






Went rafting up to Ohiopyle State Park in PA, with a group of friends and had a blast. To be fair, the water was ridiculously low and it wasn't so much rafting, as pushing/pulling the raft over rocks. It was a blast though-really a fantastic weekend!








But since that wasn't quite as intense of rafting as I had hoped for...I ended up going rafting two weeks in a row. Week two-The Gauley in West Virginia. Some of the best rafting in the country! Lots of 4's and multiple 5's!! Can't beat it.

Old Rag

Yesterday I went hiking with my friend David up to Old Rag in Shenandoah National Park. We were advised to bring lots of water and start early. All the websites said that if you don’t get there by 7am, the upper parking lot will be full and you’ll have to park at the lower lot, which adds about 2 miles to your hike. Not a big deal, but I don’t really count it as hiking if you are just walking along the road. We also wanted to miss most of the crowd, so we headed out about 4:30am. I had to laugh when we got up to the lower parking lot and found this sign.

So we started the hike (with a nice little added warmup)

We were so happy-little did we know what we had signed up for. It was an extremely intense hike. Very steep, but really great. After about two hours, we finally hit the fun stuff! Rock Scrambling.






Does it count as scrambling if you are really just jumping down 10 foot crevices?


We were loving it, but it was also nice to get to a place where we could see the top.

Great views





At the top!

It was an amazing hike, but apparantely not enough adventure for David. He decided to take the “scenic route” (no-we weren’t lost) and this is where we ended up.

My poor car.

Billy Goat Trail

Went hiking this weekend to Great Falls. It was really beautiful, but the best part was the rock scramble! For a huge portion of the trail there is only giant boulders where you have to jump/scramble/try not to fall and break a leg.





There's David down there somewhere.

Success!

Now this is hiking!


There used to be a bridge. We saw the remains of it. But this way works too, right?

Recipes for a Cure

One of the local Cupcakeries is having a promotion to support Susan G. Komen breast cancer research. People submit both a recipe and a pic of a decorated cupcake (decorated in tribute to the fight against breast cancer) and Hello Cupcake will select the top five contestants. These five cupcakes will then be posted to facebook and people can vote for their favorite.

My idea was to use the Breast Cancer ribbon for an "L" and write the word "Love". Was a lot of fun and no matter what, its for a good cause!

West Virginia

Rather than follow the stampede of DC folks and head to the beach for Memorial Day, some friends and I decided to go the other direction and head to West Virginia. Yes, you read that right...we willingly chose to go to West Virginia for vacation. But it was definitely worth it. It was an amazing weekend of hiking, kayaking, exploring caverns and eating...oh so much eating. We decided to hike the area of Black Water Falls and it was beautiful. Sadly, there wasn't much hiking to get to the falls, just lots of stairs and lots of tourists.



So we decided to try some other trails in the area. While we had a blast, the trails were not very intense.


So we decided to do some "off trail" exploring and followed the river for a while. If you thought BlackWater Falls were amazing, the falls we found were just incredible.


While I'm sure we weren't the first people to ever go this route, it was definitely not an actual trail. We just climbed through trees, scrambled over rocks, and tried not to fall in the river.


It was incredible how many and how beautiful the falls were.



On our way back to civilization, we stopped by Smoke Hole Caverns. Really amazing, and really scary when they turn out all the lights.





Thanks guys for a wonderful weekend.