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: