Day in D.C.

One day we went down to DC to visit the National Building Museum, something Bob's been wanting to see for awhile. We arrived just as they opened on a Sunday morning, which is a mellow time to be in DC; we parked right in front of the building. The displays they had were pretty good, but the building itself is most impressive. This is the inside...


Afterward, we wandered down to the Chinatown area and browsed a street market, where a funky band was entertaining the crowds. Here's the one man rhythm section.


DC has started to use smart bikes, in addition to their Zip cars. About half of the bikes were missing which is a good thing (assuming they were being put to good use).

Christmas is behind us

So now we can show you the woodworking projects we've been up to. All this staying home and off the hiking trails has been mostly good for Bob's knee, and for building woodworking skills...

Here is Frank helping Anna with a pear bowl she's turning for her mother-in-law, Sylvia:

And the finished product:

This is the tractor seat stool that Bob made as a special gift for his niece Laura. This is the first piece of seating furniture he's made, and presented many new learning opportunities: the hand carving of the seat, the compound angles of the legs, figuring out where to drill the holes, and turning 4 matching legs and 4 matching spindles on the lathe. The seat is mahogany and the legs are ash.

Anna learned how to use the router to make the mortises for this table, and she also used chisels to square up the mortise holes. In addition, she turned the top on the lathe and spent many hours sanding and finishing this traditional round cherry table for her sister-in-law Gayle:


Bob drew up the design and built this Stickley-inspired cherry footstool based on one that we own. He also did the cushion and upholstery. Anna helped finish it...

And finally, a true collaboration of skills went into this brass hammer for Bob's dad, Stan. The brass came from a job site of Frank's, and his old friend drilled the hole in it. Frank graciously gave it to me and Bob to make a hammer out of it. Anna turned the handle out mahogany, Bob finished turning it and put the designs on it, and Frank put it all together with the wedge.

Christmas Day

What is Christmas without the smiles of little kids? Here is our neighbor William, who is almost 4, thoroughly enjoying his Thomas the Train set that his aunt Lois stayed up all night creating!


Bob's sister Vonnie wrote a book that was published this past October, and is shamelessly promoting it through this Christmas gift t-shirt. I actually started reading the book and have never seen the show, and I can say the book really is good!

'Tis the season...

...to go cycling. This past week has been a good cycling week. Our friend Taz, who lives in Colorado, has been back east visiting friends and family. She came over to our house last week and we managed a 26 mile ride. About half of it was to Mount Vernon and back, and then Bob joined us for a ride into Old Town. It was supposed to rain, but it turned out to be partly cloudy and about 50 degrees. I've found it's usually best to just stick with any outdoor plans, even if the forecast is against you, because the weather predictors seem to be wrong a lot of the time.

We biked over the weekend, and today it made it up to 66 degrees, so another bike ride was in order. A holiday gift from mother nature. While riding I couldn't help but think of family and friends in Colorado who are currently freezing their butts off and enjoying lots of snow. Maybe on my upcoming January birthday I too will get to enjoy some snow, rather than enjoying freakishly warm days. Last year I rode my bike in shorts and a T-shirt on my birthday! It's all good...

This is also the season for spending time in Santa's workshop. Bob and I have both been busy making gifts, no pics though, because we don't want to ruin it for anyone.

Holiday Time of Year

We put up our christmas tree and the lights on the outside of the house. I crammed an excessive number of lights (4 strands of 450) on the tree which is only about 5 feet tall, but ran out at the top. I decided to go with it and put on the ornaments anyway -- it looks good enough!

We went down to Old Town Alexandria for the annual parade of boat lights. I've lived here over 20 years and have never seen it, so it was time to cross it off the list. It started snowing before we left, and it was cold windy waiting on the dock for the show to begin. We saw two of the boats as they left the dock, but they headed upstream... apparently they all meet up there somewhere and then parade past the Alexandria waterfront. We got tired of waiting so I didn't get to check it off the list after all.

However, we met a guy who swears he's the real Santa, and I got a picture with him. His beard would not come off if you pulled on it, that's for sure! (the white blobs are snow flakes)

Skiing in November!

We decided to take advantage of the snow that's been falling in Canaan Valley, so we drove up to Whitegrass on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was a sunny day, not crowded and the snow wasn't skiied out yet. We went up to Roundtop then on to Bald Knob, then up to Weiss Knob via the gas pipeline and did the first tele turns of the season... not bad for the first ski day of the season.

We camped at the State Park, and discovered the bar in the lodge that had $2 WV brewery beers. Then back to van for a celebration dinner and fun tunes on the satellite radio. It was 11 degrees outside when we woke up Saturday morning.

On Saturday we did the "around the world" tour, up Falls Overlook to 3 Mile to Powderline, then up into the "wilderness" area, over cabin mountain to Bald Knob, then down to Boundary trail and Upper Springer then through the woods back to the car.

The snow is great up high, and gets sketchier the lower you get. Here's a bunch of pictures from Saturday...

Bob on 3 Mile trail


Anna going up Wilderness trail


Where am I...


Bob breaking trail toward Bald Knob, wearing his blaze orange shirt
(hey, it's deer season after all!)

Happy Birthday Bob

We got up very early and drove 2 hours to the Cedar Run trail head past Sperryville. We both spotted a gorgeous bald eagle soaring over Rt. 211, although it wasn't hard to miss with the bright orange glow of the morning sun glinting off its underside. Bob hit the trail shortly after arriving, at about 8:00am with cold and partly cloudy conditions.

Anna started up the trail about 45 minutes later at a very easy pace, enjoying the scenery since it had been awhile since she'd hiked up Cedar Run. Here is the first falls and a water slide further up the trail.



She turned around after about an hour and fifteen minutes, and made it back to the van by 11:00 or so. By this time it was snowing quite hard, and sticking to the ground. She boiled water for hot chocolate and hung out in the cozy van listening to tunes, waiting for Bob's call on the 2-way radio. He beeped at about 11:30, still a mile out. Here he is at the end of the first leg in his vertical mile, with the wet snow pounding down...

After drinking hot chocolate, eating and changing socks, we both started up the Berry Hollow fire road to the top of Old Rag. It had stopped snowing by this point, but there was a lovely coating of snow on the ground to make the hike different.

Here is a nice view of Hawksbill, where Bob hiked to in the morning. It's the highest point in Shenandoah National Park. The first leg of his vertical mile from the bottom of Cedar Run to the top of Hawksbill was 3300+ feet. Hawksbill is the hump in the middle of the picture.


When we reached the top the sun was out and it was very windy, probably 20 to 30 mph and quite cold, probably low 20's. Our hands froze, and Bob's hydration hose had frozen a long time ago. Here's Bob at the official sign post, and at his high point on Old Rag! Congratulations Bob!!



It turned out that Bob's first event in his continuing epic fitness challenge really was an epic, with the cold, wind and snow. See more about his 50th year challenge on his epic blog.

Back at the van, we celebrated by eating the most amazing chocolate cake, thanks to our neighbor, Laura. It was triple layer chocolate cake, very rich chocolate frosting, and chocolate dipped strawberries on top (we also had a "proper" recovery snack of protein & healthy carbs).

Last Training Hike

Bob does his vertical-mile-birthday-continuing-epic-kick-off hike on Friday, so this weekend was his last training hike. We took it easy, and went up to Catoctin Mountain Park in Thurmont, MD. We haven't been there in years. We stopped at the visitor center and learned that a large section of the park was closed due to secret service request. We guess number 43 was hosting some pals for an autumn visit to Camp David. At any rate, we figured out a nice hike circuit, starting by hiking up the hill to Chimney Rock, then over to Wolf Rock. We then backtracked down for about 3 miles total.

The weather was beautiful: windy, cloudy, sunny, snow pellets. Awesome hiking conditions. Especially since yesterday was shorts & t-shirt weather.

Here's the close and long view from Chimney Rock.


And here we are at Wolf Rock. We used to go climbing here in the 1980's. Kind of fun to go back...


After going back to the car and having a bite to eat, we headed up the hill on the other side to Cat Rock. We couldn't resist this photo opportunity.


Here's Bob at the 3rd rock outcropping of the day, Cat Rock. We only hiked about 6 miles and less than 2000 vertical - a perfect pre-event workout to keep Bob's legs happy.

More hiking!

In an effort to help Bob train for his big birthday hike, without putting too much wear-n-tear on his knees or his feet, I dropped him off at the bottom of Little Devil's Stairs, then drove around and up to Skyline Drive, parking at the Little Hogback overlook.


I bushwhacked down to the fire road to meet Bob and he appeared shortly thereafter. He flew up the trail! We then drove down to hike up Mary's Rock, but the Panorama parking lot is closed for construction. In fact, the old Panorama building is gone. It's been closed/condemned for years since it was full of asbestos. So we parked along the road and cut through an overgrown median strip to the trail.

Here's Bob at the top (yes that's him)

And the view looking west from the top. It was one of those days in the mid 60's, and as you can see there is still some golden color up there.


On the hike down, I found a tick on my leg, probably from the short trek through the median to the trail head. It was pretty well dug in, but Bob got it out with his close-up, x-ray vision (thanks Bob).

Back at the van we sat in the grass, and another much smaller tick was on my water bottle. We scrammed out of there, and Bob had one on his shirt. We both had the heebie-jeebies on the ride home but found no more ticks. We thought it was strange to find so many ticks in November?

Been a long time...

since we've updated the blog, so here it is:

Training hikes continue...
Bob is working hard, training for his upcoming vertical mile hike on his 50th birthday. We went up to the Elizabeth Furnace area one weekend in October and hiked the loop to the radio tower on top of Signal Knob, about 10 miles. We camped out (in the forest service campground) and had a nice little fire and even grilled some steaks. Here we are taking a snack break on the trail.


Looking toward Signal Knob, with the haze of Winchester in the distance.

The next day we mountain biked part of the Mud Hole Gap trail. We were both pretty sore from the day before so we turned around after the 3rd or 4th stream crossing. Here's Bob crossing one in great style!

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Halloween was mellow, with only the cute 3 year old boys in the cul-de-sac and 2 or 3 other groups ringing the doorbell. I say it every year, but I swear I'm not buying any candy next Halloween!

There was an avian theme this year, with a penguin and a toucan...

Bike Commuting Story

Bob has been bike commuting to his job, approximately 7 miles from home, since returning from the summer trip. I think he's driven his car once.

He was riding along the other day and saw an older fellow on a big 'ol cruiser bike up ahead. This man was transporting a 2x4 across his handlebars (Bob theorizes he took it from the bridge construction along the bike path). So here's this piece of lumber sticking out several feet on either side of the handlebars...

Bob starts to pass him, just as the dude starts turning in front of him. Well Bob just kept going, plowing into the 2x4 but not falling over (great skills, Bob!) . The man in question did tumble however, so Bob stopped to make sure he was okay. He was a gruff old guy, and Bob realized that he had alcohol on his breath, perhaps from the night before, but he was not altogether with it. After Bob felt sure he was okay, he went his merry way.

A drunk bike driver, early in the morning, carrying a 2x4 across his handlebars -- an unlikely combination indeed. Bob was okay, badly scraping up his hand but otherwise in tact!

Beach Weekend

Roy and Yoli hosted their official house-warming party at their new place in Bethany over Columbus weekend. There were 15 people in attendance - a good sized crowd! Bob and I took advantage of our Friday on the drive there to do a bike ride. Ironically, we parked at the boat put-in at Trap Pond State Park, but we didn't put our boats in. Instead we took our bikes out for a 27 mile ride.

It was quite windy - and very flat of course, being Delaware. Anna worked on her drafting skills, and we did speed sprints also for a a very fun ride.

On Saturday a whole crew of us went kayaking in Assawoman Bay. Here's Sally and Sarah (daughter and mom, from L to R) getting ready for their tandem adventure!

Happy Anniversary!

October 3rd marked 21 years of marriage for Bob and me. It's been a pretty amazing stretch of good times together, and we hope for at least 21 more years!

We've been wanting to go up to Canaan Valley in West Virginia to do some mountain biking, so we decided to celebrate our anniversary with a long weekend up there. We haven't mountain biked up there for probably 12-15 years so we were eager to see what new trails have been developed. After establishing camp at Blackwater Falls State Park, we rode our bikes into Davis - 1 mile away - to check out the local bike shop. The shop is great, friendly folks and a good vibe. The owner of Blackwater Bikes, Roger Lilley, mentioned his annual group ride that he does every year and we decided to join in...

Here we are on Saturday morning before launching into an epic ride. Canaan Valley is notorious for it's mountain biking, especially the Plantation Trail, which is 8+ miles of very technical riding. Many of the trails are similar with rocks, roots, mud, bogs and of course uphill terrain to negotiate.

Within the first few miles, the first of several field repairs were undertaken. That's Roger with the helmet on, helping out the rider with a bent derailleur hanger. He is such a nice fellow!

The first 10 miles just about kicked my (Anna) butt. It was hard, technical riding and I was very proud of the obstacles I was able to successfully ride through. But by the time we reached the dirt Canaan Loop Rd (bail-out point number 1) I had already crashed 5 times, 2 of which were minor, 1 was pretty bad and the remaining were somewhere in-between. Knowing that the next segment was even more brutal, I decided to take an alternative route. Bob being the great friend he is stayed with me.

So... we decided to hook up to the infamous Plantation Trail to do some more trail riding. There were stretches that were relatively nice which we had great fun on, and there were plenty places where we walked as well. Bob had a flat tire, and he got seriously stuck in mud. Thankfully he did not go over the handle bars when the bike suddenly stopped!

We made it to the end of the trail, and rode the rest of the way to our campground on the Loop Road, then the paved roads. Our ride was 25 miles, which is a long mountain bike ride. We went back into Davis shortly after finishing and those who hadn't bailed out after we did were still on the trail, like 6.5 hours after starting.


We had a great time, and we especially enjoyed the almost peaking autumn leaves. Here's a nice shot of some trees at Pendleton Lake in Blackwater Falls State Park.