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Hiking
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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the next chapter |
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i had the day off today (some kind of national holiday honoring the beginning of the end of Native American civilization) which conveniently doubled as one of my last chances for a solo hike in the near- to mid-future.
I’ve often joke with the lady sparkler that boys have it harded than girls getting ready for a baby. girls have a constantly growing reminder that something is about to change. boys just have longer-than-usual home improvement list, and the odd sensation that their wife is putting on a couple extra pounds. not to mention, boys aren’t that good at sensing or reflecting anyway. but, that’s why i’m at susquehanna state park. located about 30 miles north of baltimore, it has always been my favorite hike, and i’ve been so many times — half a dozen in the last decade — that it’s become a place for me to measure the passage of time, relationships and all sorts of personal milestones. as our due date edges close and closer, it’s been dawning on me that somethings are about to change. I’ll no longer have the lady sparkler all to myself. I’ll probably be way more focused on other’s bodily functions than my own. that being said, I will soon have a beautiful daughter to share beautiful places and beautiful afternoons just like this one. I’ll also have a dumptruck-sized load of perspective that I’m pretty sure I’ve lacked up til now. but the beautiful hike has cleared my head, and even if there are a couple small things left to wrap up before sparklet arrives, I’m ready. I have a wonderful wife, we have a wonderful family, and are surrounded by wonderful friends. I can’t think of a better world to bring our little sparklet into. Explore the Photo Set:
Susquehanna State Park, Havre de Grace, Maryland |
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![[Susquehanna State Park, Havre de Grace, Maryland]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2730/4017756159_738e043718.jpg)
hike: mirror lake, oregon |
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Explore the Photo Set:
hike: mirror lake, oregon |
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hike: enchanted rock state park, texas |
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after three days in austin for a non-profit technology conference, i headed for the hills today for a hike around enchanted rock state park near oxford, texas. it’s a giant monolith in the middle of the texas hill country, and completely unlike anything else around. of course, when you are on a rock with no identifiable markings (you know, like a trail or something) one tends to get lost. but fortunately, one also tends to have a brand-spanking new iphone with gps integrated google maps to bail oneself out. again. but i still added about two hours to my hike by unexpectedly coming down the backside of the mountain, but the sky was blue and the weather was freexzing cold (by texas standards) so no harm, no foul. Explore the Photo Set:
Hike: Enchanted Rock State Park, Texas |
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hike: sky meadows state park, virginia |
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Explore the Photo Set:
Hike: Sky Meadows State Park, Virginia |
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first attempt at anniversary fails, couple reshedules for friday |
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it’s our anniversary, and the lady sparkler and I packed up Saturday for some light camping along the Delaware shore (cape helopen, near rehobeth). the first problem is that she’s been fighting a cold, and it seemed to take up residence as the weekend went on. second problem was that the beach town was packed with old white people and their funny accents (the origin of which we never did figure out). but besides side-stepping octagenarians, we had a good lunch (authentic, takeout fish and chips) at the beach before heading bailing for the quiet serenity of the nearby state park. turns out that the economy really is in the toilet, because while every motel had bountiful vacancies, the campsite was quite literally packed with miserable looking middle-class white people. we checked in, and found our allotted 8 foot square patch of sand surrounded on all sides by kids, dogs and cars. our site seemed to have the special designation of being the dog run for the neighbooring sites, which would have been about 2 feet from our tent once pitched. i am pretty certain that I have never seen such a small “campsite” before, and (we decided) hope to never again. so, given the illness, the kids, the dogs, and the funny accents, we decided to take a long walk around the cape, eat some cheesy-so-bad-it’s-good Mexican food (Chevy’s) along the highway home and call it a day. in full disclosure, the day was by no means a wash … we had gorgeous weather, a beautiful hike, and a wonderful day trip. we’re going to celebrate our anniversary on Friday instead, with a meal at our favorite-est fancy restaurant in the world — Acadiana — like good affluent, married white-people should. hopefully we’ll have less sickness, and we’ll definitely have less funny accents. |
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hiking in rock creek park (why we love dc #9) |
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it turns out that rock creek park (of Chandra Levy fame) has a network of trails … *actual* trails with switchbacks, elevation gain, wildlife, streams, and mud. not just the paved rec paths or glorified sidewalks you would imagine in a city park. it amazes me that residents of Mt. Pleasant won’t shut up about the glory that is the National Zoo — though it is pretty awesome — and yet they neglect to mention the National Park-grade liking trails less than three blocks away. even more stupefying is that we had the trails to our selves. sans a couple or dog owners and a pair of septuagenarians warning us about the perils of poison ivy (they had just been interviewed by News Channel 8 on the topic) there was nary a human in sight on a stunningly beautiful Sunday afternoon. there are two main trails around the park … the western ridge trail and the valley trail. we looped through the bottom third of both in about two hours. the trails go from the Zoo all the way up to Maryland, but we weren’t that brave (and, frankly, should have been in better shoes). we did get lost (yes, in rock creek park) and used my fancy-pants new iPhone’s GPS locator-thingy to save our bacon. I’d like to think that the coolness of the iPhone balances embarrassment of actually using it in the “wilderness” … but, sadly, it’s still just humiliating. speaking of maps, those provided by the Park Service show the trails as one unintelligible smudge, which makes navigation (without an iPhone) that much more exciting. there are larger, more printer friendly rock creek trail maps here: Map: Hiking Trails in Rock Creek Park (South) Explore the Photoset: |
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travel: discovery bay national park, victoria |
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Austalia (Day Seven) — Today we had two of the best hikes of the trip so far, both through Discovery Bay National Park, which runs along the Southern Ocean on the western edge of Victoria.
On our way back from the second, we ran into three billy goats (“gruff” presumably) in the middle of the path. Don’t know where they came from — they weren’t anywhere to be seen on the way out — but they were sure enough there on the way back. Initially, things didn’t look particularly good … the biggest one of the bunch approached slowly, dipped its head, and started pawing the ground. Perhaps, now is a good time to pause for some back-story: Last year when the lady sparkler and I were in Tucson, we mis-timed one of our hikes and found ourselves out in the desert after dark. As we were scurrying back, we had not one but two rattlesnakes try and kill us. The second of the two actually rattled across the path between the lady sparkler (who stopped) and myself (who sped up). Yesterday, we were hiking around Mount Richmond in the middle of the day, when I noticed a large tree branch that was down across the path began to move. We’d find out later that it was actually a copperhead, one of the 14 breeds of snakes in Australia that can kill you. Now, when you think copperhead, you think of a normal-sized snake that just happens to be poisonous. This, however, was the size of the basilisk from that Harry Potter movie. It looked like it had recently eaten a moose. Or an auto. Anyway, back to the goats. The only thing that kept me from running around like a blithering idiot around the snakes — other than the whole “being paralyzed with fear” thing — was that I keep being told that they are just as scared of us as we are of them. The goats? Not afraid of us, though, this turned out to be a good thing. Momma goat DID dip her head, and pawed the ground, but was just looking to soften up the dirt before she laid down to completely block the path. Her two chil’en quickly followed suit. We gingerly chose about a 6 inch path between the goats and the 200-foot cliff, and resisted the urge to pet the (now) cute little goats. Didn’t want to open ourselves up to *that* conversation with Customs. Turns out that not everything in Australia is trying to kill you. Explore the Photo Set:
Travel: Discovery Bay National Park, Victoria, Australia |
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hike: roosevelt island, washington, dc |
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the lady sparkler and i set out at about 1 pm for the great western woods, but after 30 blocks of remarkably abysmal traffic, we were still in D.C. at 2:30 pm. so, we regrouped and walked around roosevelt island, a national park in the potomac between rosslyn and georgetown.
Explore the Photo Set:
Theodore Roosevelt Island, Washington, D.C.
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hike: patapsco valley state park, ellicot city, maryland