Planning a New Adventure

Despite the atrocious weather — we’ve had cold, rain, torrential downpours, thunderstorms, and strong winds this week — I have enjoyed my spring break. I really do love sleeping in. Is it shameful to admit that? (Although “sleeping in” to me means not getting up until between 7:30 and 8 a.m.) I’ve gotten to catch up with my blogging friends, do a little shopping, tackle a few household chores, and spent some time tucked away in my scrapbooking room.

Here is a glimpse of the workstation Mark built for me in the guest room. As you can see, I still need to spread out on the bed a little bit. But at least my stuff isn’t all over the floor now!

My comfy scrapbooking nook.

I am making good progress on my Vermont book. (Although a good friend recently told me that after I die, no one is going to care about the time, effort and money I put into my scrapbooks. Oh well, I enjoy it and it’s a good creative outlet for me.) It’s been a great way to “re-live” the wonderful time we had last summer. Check out some of my posts from Vermont in the August archives.

I had really hoped to go do some birding and photography while I was off on break, but the weather has made that impossible. I had to make do with enjoying a visit from this little guy — a brown creeper came to see me Tuesday. Despite the wind and rain that day, he was very tenacious.

Brown creeper on a rainy day.

Brown creeper finds the bark butter.

He also didn’t stay still, which is why my photos are fairly terrible and soft/blurry. Also, there was dog drool on the window again. How DOES that happen?? Hmmm….

But, the best part of my spring break has been planning our next BIG ADVENTURE.

Planning our next adventure!

In June we are taking our summer vacation down in the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina. We are going to drive Skyline Drive starting at Front Royal and go all the way down the Blue Ridge Parkway to Mt. Pisgah. I now have all our hotel reservations made. We are staying two nights at Big Meadows on Skyline Drive, a night in Charlottesville near Monticello, two nights at Peaks of Otter on the Blue Ridge Parkway, one night at The Village Inn in Blowing Rock, and then topping off our stay with two nights at the top of Mt. Pisgah at the Pisgah Inn — the highest elevation accommodations on the Parkway.

Mark is really looking forward to this trip, as he will be reliving some of his childhood memories. He grew up in Fairfax, VA, and went hunting with his dad and uncles in the Shenandoah Valley. One thing he wants to do is find their old hunting/camping ground. As you can see from the photo, I bought an extensive hiking guide and it’s Mark’s job to plan the hiking trails we will take. In preparation for this, we made a trip to Cabela’s and invested in new hiking boots and a really good backpack to carry all our essential gear.

New hiking gear.

As I am less than a month away from my 52nd birthday, and my back problems from scoliosis and other malformations in my hips/pelvis have been getting progressively worse, we know our days of going on long hiking trips will end in the future. So, we are really looking forward to this trip. I had neglected my back over the holidays and have been in fairly significant pain since the beginning of the year. But, I am now back to regular visits with my chiropractor and things are calming down somewhat. I had also been working hard to lose about 8 pounds and fell in love with Zumba, which I found out was not good with my spine being so far out of alignment. So, no Zumba for me right now, just light cardio. Also, you can see from the above photo that we only bought one backpack. I won’t be carrying anything heavier than my camera! 🙂

Are you planning any fun adventures for the summer?? If so, please share in the comment section. I would love to get ideas for new places to visit! It’s kind of funny that when planning a vacation, we now take into consideration photo opportunities and what will make good blog posts! LOL