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See All the Photos on Flickr:
sky meadows state park, delaplane, virginia
sky meadows state park, delaplane, virginia
Flexday
hike: sky meadows state park |
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flexday: swimming pool |
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![[]](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4102/4855674300_f388040f4c.jpg) See All the Photos on Flickr:
flexday: swimming pool |
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hike: patapsco valley state park |
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hike: matildaville trail, great falls national park, va |
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sparklet’s first hike. didn’t make it long (45 minutes) or far (mile and a half tops) but it mostly worked. she hates wearing a hat, tho. that lasted all of about 30 seconds.
See All the Photos on Flickr:
matildaville trail, great falls national park, va |
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first: dupont circle |
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i had an inadvertent day off today.
i’ve been stockpiling vacation days in expectation of sparklet, but apparently did too good of a job. now i’m maxed out on how many vacation days i can save up and HR won’t let me accrue anymore unless i use a vacation day every two weeks. don’t get me wrong, it’s a good problem to have … i just wish i figured out I had to take today off before i spent two hours sitting at my desk. anyway, the lady sparkler and i are still negotiating with our work to nail down the details of how our maternity / paternity leave is going to look. for now, it looks like mommy is going to be off from now through Martin Luther King Day (that mid-january, for anyone in arizona) and i’ll be off the four weeks following (through President’s Day). once we figured that out (and shipped the notion off to our respective office places) we took a quick trip down to dupont circle to get some fresh air, and show sparklet her first neighborhood outside mount pleasant. and, needless-to-say, mommy was tickled to have an extra set of hands for the day. Explore the Photo Set:
flexday: dupont circle, washington, dc |
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flexday: biking the c&o canal, part 2 (edward’s ferry) |
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i did the washington, d.c. part of the c&o canal last year, and liked it enough that i decided to go back for more. the next section, between great falls and edward’s ferry, started off exactly the same … until lock 23 (mile 22) where the trail turns into one long mud pit.
needless to say, my happy little three hour ride turned into a six hour extravaganza … one from which my thighs (and butt) may never fully recover. Explore the Photo Set:
Edward’s Ferry, Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park, Maryland |
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![[Edward's Ferry, Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park, Maryland.]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2484/3622100167_00424120b8.jpg?v=0)
flexday: 83 degrees and sunny |
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things have been a little hectic at the office with another huge technology project coming down the pike, so i’ve missed (or cut short) my last handful of flex days.
fortunately, no one scheduled any meetings for me this Friday, so i was able to take the day and bike down to Haines Point and back. no where near as far as my last trip, but the 83 degrees (and low humidity) certainly made up for it … Explore the Photo Set:
Haines Point, Washington, DC |
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flexday: monuments, the non-postcard edition |
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i’m getting a little bored with shooting d.c., so on this particular flex day i biked around the national mall … but i only brought the wide angle lens. some pretty interesting pictures happen when a wide lens forces you to change how you see the capital’s iconic monuments. Explore the Photo Set:
flexday: monuments, the non-postcard edition |
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flexday: pedaling to great falls |
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it’s officially the start of summer, because i start “flexing” every other friday. the deal at work is this: we still have to put in our 10 days worth of hours, but if we can do it in 9 days, we get every other friday off.
now, about 90% of me wanted to stay home, sleep, eat, play wii, etc … but with 72 degree weather, and working for an organization with “nature” in the title, it seemed like the slacking could wait until those 102 degree days in July. so, i hopped on my bicycle, and headed up the C&O Canal Towpath that runs along the Potomac towards West Virginia. The trail head is four hilly miles from our place but, once on the path, it’s mercifully flat for the rest of the 35 mile round trip. there really are about ten days out of the year where D.C. is the most beautiful place on earth, and i just got lucky with one of them. Explore the Photo Set:
Cycling to Great Falls, Maryland (and back) |
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hike: hawksbill mountain, shenandoah national park, virginia |
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I took my last flex day of the summer, and went for one final hike. hawkbill moutain is the tallest peak in the shenandoah national park and almost all of the trail’s rise (1372 ft) is in the first mile. once up there, the view is stunning … 360 degrees of the valleys to the east and west. hawksbill mountain, shenandoah national park, virginia
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i haven’t looked it up yet, but the 2 mile trail we just did had enough altitude gain that it might as well been the north face of mount everest, as least as far as my frail body/flabby midsection was concerned.
and, sparklet was unkind — providing very verbal feedback every 10 feet when her daddy/sherpa stopping to suck wind.
the big news of the morning came on the way back down, when we ran smack into a herd of cows — animals, i should point out, that didn’t seem to be having a problem with the altitude.
we ran into them right as we were coming over a blind rise, so by the time sparklet saw them they were maybe 10 feet away, and she was utterly confounded about how a whole pack of her friends from the petting zoo got up here (and how she got on the wrong side of the fence, i’d imagine).
after about 10 minutes of staring (with a competition between sparklet’s eyes and her mouth for which could be open the widest) we finally said goodbye to the cows and continued on.
sparklet wailed, until we turned back.
after 5 more minutes of staring (and waving, and giggling) we once again said goodbye to the cows and continued on.
sparklet wailed.
it wasn’t until three more rounds of this that the cows were far enough away that sparklet finally lost interest in her first official “wildlife” sighting.
and, being the out-of-shape/selfish nit that i am, the whole time i was wondering why we couldn’t have seen the cows on the way UP the mountain, when i could have used the excuse to stop.