Snow!

It's been well over a week since the big snow storm and it has completely melted away, but I'm just now getting around to posting some pictures. It was nice to have a little snow left for Christmas, even if was soggy!

It had been snowing about 15 hrs by this point:

I love the snow piled up on the Thule box on Bob's car:

Neighbor Frank shoveling to keep up with the accumulations, and William being a kid:

The morning after. It took awhile to dig out the Subaru:

The Subaru drives like a champ on not-so-cleared roads. We enjoyed a nice cross country ski expedition at Ft. Hunt Park:

Looking through the woods to the Potomac River:

Great Falls

Last Friday's hike was at Great Falls, MD. We parked at Angler's Inn and walked a little way down the Burma Road, then headed off into the woods and the trail system to the right. There are a surprising number of trails back here -- and best of all -- we've never hiked them! It's nice to know there are still some trails around here we haven't been on. We wandered up to a road with a VFW post and some cool guns. Looking through the sights:


We also walked around inside the Great Falls Tavern, something I've never done. There are some interesting displays, but mostly it's a cool old building.


As we walked down the trail to the C&O towpath, we were taken aback by the water level. Neither of us had any inkling that the water was so high (over 7 feet) although it made sense with all the rain we'd had (it hadn't rained for many days though).

This is usually a trickle, or even dry. The amount of water pounding through and literally exploding was a little creepy:

Bob with the washed-out Falls behind him. There are usually 3 distinct drops:

Close up of the Falls, with rainbow:

Here is a movie of the Falls. So cool to see the exploding waves!

Downtown DC

We took Bob's dad to DC for the afternoon to see some of the holiday sites and have lunch. We were disappointed that the Capitol tree wasn't lit yet, but the US Botanical Garden displays more than made up for it! The plant-based replicas of DC landmark buildings were too cool. Things like sycamore leaves, gourds, sticks and moss were used to make these. The photos didn't turn out that great, but here are a few. You should be able to click on them to see better detail.

The U.S. Supreme Court

The U.S. Capitol

The Smithsonian "Castle"

That is a bear made out of yew next to us.

Little Devil's Stairs

We're happy that we've gotten into our autumn hiking mode! It's a great time to get out and exercise -- no crowds, great views without leaves on the trees, and cool temps. Our latest was the short and sweet Little Devil's Stairs. I always lose track of the number of times the trail crosses the stream, but it's somewhere around ten. There was more water in the stream than either of us has ever seen -- all the rain lately really made a few of the crossings interesting. And at several points, the trail was a stream! The cliffs were especially beautiful, with little waterfalls flowing over them in a few spots.

Some highlights:

This is one part where the stream was in the trail:

Snicker's Gap

This one has been on our list for years... a local hike, west of Leesburg. This is where the AT crosses Route 7. We were the second car in the parking lot, and enjoyed solitude all the way to Raven Rocks, where we had a snack before turning back. We thought the sign at the VA/WV border was cool, imagining what it would be like for through hikers finally getting to this point, after walking 535 miles through VA:

The views to the west were pretty good -- you can see Signal Knob. It's funny, but we decided that driving to Skyline Drive is actually closer for us. Going to Leesburg and beyond from Mount Vernon involves negotiating too much of the megopolis! It is a very nice hike though. And popular: on our way back we passed at least 30 people, the lot was full upon our return and the side road was full of cars barely parked off the road. Crazy.

We were decked out in "don't-shoot-me-blaze-orange" hats since we weren't sure about hunters on the surrounding private lands. But no gunshots were heard...

Old Rag

We hiked Old Rag for Bob's birthday again this year -- it's become a tradition, sort of a test of the aging process. We both made the hike just fine! And not too sore the next day. This is such a fun hike, with the scrambling and crazy rocks. Makes the trek back down the fire road (if you do the loop) bearable. Highights from the day:

Billy Goat Trail

Billy Goat Bob:

Our hike this weekend was close to home, at the Billy Goat trail in Maryland. We parked at Carderock and hiked almost all the way to the Great Falls visitor center. We think it was somewhere around 6 miles round trip. This is one of the best local hikes around, with fairly strenuous rock hopping and scrambling. We started early, with some mist still hanging over the river, and no one around. And we had time to do a major leaf clean-up when we got home -- does that count as a double workout?!

Misty morning

Mather Gorge

National Harbor

We finally rode our bikes to National Harbor. We've been across the Wilson Bridge path many times, but never made it to the harbor area since the last stretch of path is crushed shells, and not friendly to skinny road bike tires. Also not very good riding on road bikes was the bike path, which was inches deep in wet leaves after the Nor'easter. So our mountain/cross bikes were perfect.

The "awakening" sculpture that was at Haines Point was moved here, so that was cool to see. It looks shinier in its new home. The big hotel building is impressive inside, and some of the landscaping is nice also. We'll probably come back for cocktails and dinner sometime.

One of the garden areas outside:

One of the garden areas inside the Gaylord hotel atrium:

South Philly

Me and my two sisters made a road trip to Philadelphia to visit our sweet Aunt Gloria (that's her above), our mom's sister. Our third cousin had a baby two weeks before, so it was a bonus to have a newborn in the house! Here's my sister Maria with newborn, Emily.

Southern Maryland

It's hard to believe this year - this decade - is almost over! Here's a few sights from what we've been up to the past few weeks.

Bob goes to a great place in Charles Co. MD to buy wood for his furniture projects. We usually combine it with a bike ride, but we decided we'd rather hike (even though we had out bikes). We've ridden past the Purse Park area many time on our bikes, and have always been curious about it. There is a nice trail down to the river, with some old house ruins along the way.


We lucked out because it was low tide, so we could walk for miles along the shore. We collected "sea" glass, cool rocks and shells. The mud cliffs are pretty big through here and feature psychedelic layers of old shells and things. It was neat enough we'd both like to go back sometime!