In my last post, I mentioned that Hubby and I have been spending more quality time together. I figured I’d share some pics of the various stuff we’ve been doing.
The weather has been delightfully mild, so we have been enjoying outdoor activities as much as possible, such as hiking and bicycling at Shenandoah River State Park.
I’d been wanting to visit that park for some time. I’d seen signs and had read about it previously, but hadn’t managed to visit. It’s only 43 miles slightly north and west of our home in north, central Virginia (about a 52-minute drive). But it’s along a stretch of road we had never traveled. Or maybe we’d traveled that piece of road once, long ago.
Anyhoo… we FINALLY visited Shenandoah River State Park (SRSP) a couple weekends ago. It’s really a lovely place.
We only walked on some of the trails at the park during our first visit. Then, the following weekend, we returned with our bicycles.
Some hiking pics…
Sign at trailhead.
Trail marker.
Side trail from canoe launch to Bluebell Trail.
Shenandoah River
Fungus (on a live tree)
Fungus (on downed log)
I always thought that fungi growing on trees was squishy, sorta like a dense mushroom. This one looked and felt just like wood. It really intrigued. It’s almost like the fungus invaded the actual cells of the tree and grew, together into a wood-like appendage.
Shenandoah River
Artsy
Virginia Bluebells (one of the few plants in early bloom)
Pretty, little flower.
Pretty, little flower with my glasses, for scale.
Beautiful, blue sky.
River Clams(?)
The water was very clear.
Pretty, clear water.
Walking
Lovely place for a stroll.
My Honey
Pretty view.
Reflection
Virginia Bluebell, emerging.
Tree, growing on riverbank.
I hope you enjoyed the pics. According to my Honey, I stop to look at the weirdest shit. LOL.
The following week, we returned to the Bluebell Trail, where we’d hiked during our first visit. I was hoping to see more flowers in bloom, but it was still too early. Because we were on the bikes, I didn’t stop nearly as much for pictures.
Parts of the trail are a bit rough for bicyclists like us, accustomed to riding on paved or more groomed/well-maintained trails, but it was still fun. It felt a lot like riding through the woods when I was a kid. Bumpy, but fun.
Bluebell Trail (rougher surface than River Trail)
The River Trail is smoother and more out in the open. No dodging trees and/or trees roots. We did encounter some horses, with riders, so had some road apples to dodge along the way.
Hubby on the River Trail
Nice rest spot along the River Trail.
I believe that’s the primitive group camping spot in the above pic, behind where Mike is sitting. The park also has an RV campground, rental cabins, and other primitive campsites. There are also multiple river access points along the river so people can easily enjoy the 5+ miles of river frontage.
Pretty spot to stop.
I have no idea if that cabin is for rent. It was very close to the river and River Trail, but didn’t have any sort of signage.
Hubby, at trail’s end.
I am going to try to get back to SRSP when the bluebells are in full bloom. If I do, I’ll be sure to share some pics here. Social distancing is easiest when outdoors.
HI was playing around with a word cloud app this morning and, on a whim, decided to input the URL of my last blog post. This is what I came up with…
I thought it a bit serendipitous that THINK showed up as the biggest word. Because, really, I suspect that thinking is the key to everything.
How do you come up with solutions to problems? You think about the issue at hand.
How do you learn to understand other people’s feelings? Think about what it must be like to be in their shoes. By that, I mean you need to think not only about how they actually see things through their eyes, but how they perceive things with their brain. What is their perspective? Why do they do what they do, when/how they do it? Why do they see things so differently than you do? Why can’t they see or feel the things you feel? Why don’t they care about the “why” of things like you do?
That’s a lot of questions, right?
During my mother-in-law’s (MIL’s) recent visit, I asked a lot of questions. I didn’t just ask her questions, I puzzled over a bunch of stuff in my head, too. There are many things about my family that I have struggled over the years to understand. The more I think about stuff, the better I am able to comprehend things. Not just physical things, either. Ideas. Perspectives. Attitudes, for better or worse.
I may not have arrived at all of the answers, but I am at least better-equipped to form new, perhaps temporary, hypotheses. Some of those are more accurate than others. Some are pretty far-fetched, too.
We, as people, tend to take an awful lot of stuff for granted. We assume people are all basically like ourselves. That we all have the same ability to think, to reason, to comprehend. But we don’t. People are all wired differently. The differences could be physical (brain structure) and/or mental (brain signals). The tricky thing is that we cannot see those differences, so it takes longer to figure out. It requires a little bit of effort, too.
What kind of effort? Thought. It really is as simple as that.
Hubby, Mike, and I have been married for almost 27 years. It’s always been obvious to me that we are very different in a lot of ways, but I have only recently begun to understand just how different.
Here’s a simple example. A month or so ago, out of the blue, he asked me why, when I put the TV remote back on the endtable (where it “belongs”) every night, I lay it upside-down.
“I don’t put it there it upside-down,” I told him. “At least not on purpose.”
I know I can a bit scatter-brained, so adding that “not on purpose” qualifier is important.
I assumed that, by “upside-down,” he meant like this…
Face-down
Nope, he meant this.
Face-up
“What makes that upside-down?” I asked.
“The top of the remote should be pointing at the TV, not the other way.”
”Um… why?” I asked. “So, when I want to turn the TV on, I don’t have to pick it up, I just have to reach over and hit the power button. When you put the buttons here, upside-down like this, I have to pick the remote up, turn it around, and then hit the power,” he explained as he demonstrated.
Right-side up
I had to laugh. I mean, I never would have thought about making sure I lay the buttons down so they were pointing at the TV. I’m usually just happy remembering to put them back in the “right” spot.
Really, I would never think that. It’s a good thing we have each other, eh?
When Mike and I married in 1993, we decided that we would take a “big vacation,” one that involved air travel to a faraway place, every five years. The first trip was to Arizona in 1998. The second trip was to California in 2003. In 2008, we went to Alaska.
The plan got derailed a bit when we started vacationing with friends. We enjoyed a vacation in 2013, it just wasn’t specifically considered a 20th anniversary trip. We were both okay with that. The unspoken point of the plan has always been to make sure we travel and make time for us. That was particularly important in 1993 when we married. Between us, we had three young children. Our marriage was more than the joining of two people, it was the blending of two families, which came with its own unique set of challenges.
I have always been the one doing most of the planning. It’s always been up to me to do the research, find accommodations, and come up with the overall plan for each trip. Our the trips have gotten more and more interesting as the years have passed. Not only have our likes and dislikes evolved, there are far more tools available and a wider variety of choices in terms of accommodations. In 1993 when we got married, a trip to Cancun with Apple Vacations seemed really exotic. It wasn’t. It was fun, but Cancun caters to tourists and has a very American feel. Some people like that. We don’t.
Typical “touristy” vacations are not our thing. We don’t like crowds. We hate waiting in long lines. Neither of us like noise either, something that’s really hard to escape when visiting popular vacation hot spots. We tend to avoid cities, too, which is probably because of our aversion to crowds, waiting/lines, and noise!
As our 25th anniversary approached, I actually dreaded the whole Hawaii plan. To me, nothing says “touristy” like a trip to Hawaii. I mean, it’s one of those things many, many people say they want to do. Not just Americans, either, people from all around the world aspire to visit the remote island paradise. It is a busy, year-round destination, so I knew that avoiding crowds would be a real challenge. So much of a challenge, that I really was not all that interested in going. I mean, I wanted to go, a trip is a trip, I was just dreading the touristy part. But it was the last US state Hubby had to visit before he could say he’d been in every state and it was also the last state he had to explore on two wheels before he could say he’d ridden a motorcycle in every US state. So we HAD to go.
All the research I did revealed that early April and the month of September are the least-popular times to visit Hawaii. If we were going to go in April 2018, I would have had to start the real planning, buying plane tickets, booking rental cars and accommodations, in January and February. Since we’d learned just before Christmas that our dog, K, was terminally ill and we had NO idea how long she would be with us, I was reluctant to make plans to travel in April. I knew that I would not want to leave her if she was still hanging on in April, so we put the plans on hold.
We could have gone in September 2018, but doing so would have meant doing the aforementioned “real” planning in June or July. My layoff in early June nixed that. So that’s why we ended up celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary near the end of our 26th year as a married couple.
There are not many direct flights to Hawaii. Lucky for us, United has direct flights from Dulles, our home airport. Direct flights are typically less of a hassle, but the duration was a bit concerning. Ten and a half hours on one airplane, in one cramped seat, is a very long time. So, when United reached out via e-mail a few weeks before our departure, offering discounted upgrades to first class, I decided to splurge. It was a big celebration, after all. And we don’t usually spend money frivolously.
I’m glad we did, too. It wasn’t the standard first class seat, it was actually an upgraded business class section that United has been adding to some of its long-haul flights. Not only is there a wider seat and more legroom, the seat reclines to a fully flat position, like a little bed.
It was so worth the extra expense. We arrived in Hawaii more-relaxed than I’ve ever felt even after a two- or three-hour flight. The premium seats were largely responsible, coupled with the fact that families don’t usually sit in the premier cabin, so we didn’t have to listen to anyone else’s children. A HUGE plus.
Map of our drive from the airport to the North Shore.
Once we landed on Oahu, all we had to do was retrieve our luggage, pick up our rental car, and drive to the North Shore, as far away from the large city of Honolulu as we could get while staying on that island.
It was midday, local time, when we arrived (Hawaii is six hours behind our home state of Virginia), so I decided to direct Hubby to take a route around the island instead of driving across the island. I thought it would be more-scenic. Looking at the map, it looks like the road follows the coast. The road DOES follow the coast, but there are houses all along the beach, many of which are fenced-off for privacy. It wasn’t scenic in the sense that we got to enjoy uninterrupted views of the water, but we did get to experience a bit of Oahu off the beaten path.
After about an hour, we reached our rental unit. It wasn’t a fancy place, just a one-bedroom apartment on the first floor of someone’s house. But it had everything we needed and it was just an easy five-minute stroll to the beach.
“Our” Oahu Beach
I seem to have misplaced the pics I captured in and around the yard of our apartment, which is a shame. The yard was really nice. It was full of interesting vegetation. There were lizards, too. But the nearby beach was the best part.
Hawaii’s North Shore
The North Shore gets hit with really big waves during the winter months. In fact, this little beach isn’t far from the infamous Banzai Pipeline with its 20+ foot waves.
Beautiful Day on the Beach
The color of the water was mesmerizing.
Beautiful Day on the Beach
I really could just sit, watching and listening to the waves all day long.
Mesmerizing.
Not far west of where we were staying was a beach where sea turtles like to hang out. Some of the pics I captured at that beach are with the misplaced apartment images. We did see a couple of turtles, but, because the beach was right beside the road, it was thronged with people. Seeing the turtle was cool, but it didn’t feel very “wild” seeing it surrounded by a large circle of gawking people. So we just walked a ways down the beach, found a shady spot for our chairs, and sat for an hour or two.
Turtle Beach (the turtles and people are off in the distance).
Temps were in about the mid- to upper 70s, and there was a lovely breeze. One thing that surprised me about Hawaii was the absence of seagulls. It was unusual, but very nice, to sit on the beach listening to the sound of waves mingled with the voices of songbirds instead of the loud, grating squawk of seagulls.
Interesting Sand
The beach was visually stunning. There were quite a few rocks and many places where the sand had been compacted into giant, pockmarked boulders. I’m not sure if that’s coral, or if it’s sand that was baked into a solid, massive sheet at some point by a volcano.
Turtle Beach Selfie
Sitting on the beach in Hawaii under the shade trees is much nicer than baking on the beaches like we are used to doing on the East Coast of the US.
Our shady spot on Turtle Beach.
I’m hoping we can locate the misplaced folder of images captured with my camera during the first couple of days in Hawaii. If not, we will just have to go back and do it all over again. 🙂
Today, April 17, is our 26th wedding anniversary. We have never really made a big deal out of anniversaries. Birthdays either. Not because we don’t think they are important. I think it’s more because there are now so many societal expectations around bigger and better celebrations of milestone events that celebrating in any big way sort of feels like giving in and becoming just another consumer in a society driven mad by consumption. Think about it, there are entire industries built on human’s desire to celebrate stuff. Greeting cards, balloons, flowers, cakes. I like all that stuff, but I like it best when it’s not expected, if that makes any sense.
This year was different. This year we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in what was, for us, a pretty big way. First, Mike and I flew to Hawaii for a two-week vacation. Then, we topped it off with an entire weekend hanging out at home with our three children. Today, our 26th anniversary sort of marks the end of a three-week celebration of us. Not just us, the husband and wife, but us, the family.
It’s been a journey for all of us, really. Full of various bumps, misdirections, obstacles large and small, with some mental and metaphysical challenges thrown in that were more monumental than I think anyone ever expected. But we have all persevered, and we all continue to grow. Some of us are struggling more than others, but that’s sort of to be expected. We are, after all, each in various phases or stages of our individual life’s path. But we still like and love each other, and I think we always will. That’s huge. We may not all be bound by blood, but we are bound by something. It could just be familiarity and a collection of shared experiences, but it feels like more.
The family in 1993.
We have all come a very long way from being the people we were in that picture to the people we are now.
The family in 2019.
It is not often that we all get the chance to just hang out and reconnect. In fact, I think the last time we were all together without significant others and offspring was in 2004 when we took a family vacation to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.
The family in 2004.
It is fun to look back and see how far all of us have come.
The kids in 2004.
None of us are exactly the same people we were back then. We have all grown so much since then, in so many different ways.
Mike and I have been blessed in so many ways. And we are very proud of these people we were each given as children to raise. They are each very special and very unique in so many ways. They have all grown into amazing adults.
We are so very glad they all chose to come visit and help celebrate our 25-year anniversary milestone. It meant the world to both of us, to all of us, really. Even when Mike and I are dead and gone, the kids will still have each other. Isn’t that what all parents want? Being a family, whether or not related by blood, doesn’t always guarantee that good, strong connections will be forged. That takes work, careful nurturing of spirits, and maybe even a little bit of luck.
I, for one, am happy and proud to be able to share my life with each and every one of these very special people. I love them all very much. Especially this guy.
Me and Mike in 2019.
Happy anniversary, Honey! Here’s to many more years to come. And thanks again, Shannon, Amy, and Eric, for wanting to come together to celebrate with us. It meant more to both of us than I suspect any of you will ever truly understand.
Our stable of vehicles has expanded temporarily. Hubby got a new bike!
Hubby’s New Ride
It’s a 2015 Honda CTX-700 DCT with ABS. That’s quite a mouthful, isn’t it?
He’s had his eyes on that model for a while now, and was just waiting for the right one to become available locally. It only has a little less than 1,700 miles on it. The previous owner used it for commuting. He’s moving and didn’t want to take the bike along, so now it’s ours.
Now we need to re-home the big-ass Victory that’s carried Hubby all over and around the US as well as into and through southern Canada.
Mike says he is through with long distance motorcycling. By that I mean, things like the Four Corners Tour, last year’s ride to Hyder, Alaska, and riding to Utah just because he’d missed “the middle” of the US when he did the Four Corners. There’ ll probably be more long weekend rides for us in the near future.
But first… we’ve got a trip to Hawaii coming up. We were supposed to go last year to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, but the timing didn’t work out. If all goes well, we’ll be on a Hawaiian beach in a little over two weeks.
That’s the only state where Hubby has not ridden a motorcycle. Yet. So that will be one of our must-do activities on one of the islands.
Other than getting to and from the islands plus making lodging and car reservations, we have no set plan for our time on the islands. We will do some touristy stuff, but we will will also be relaxing, too.
I’m sure I will have lots of photos to share AND lots of down-time in which to share them.
In case anyone is wondering, Hubby and I are still riding together. It’s just that it is summertime, which means it gets hot. It’s worse for Hubby on his big-ass Victory with it’s 1,740-cc engine. I’m usually fine up until the thermometer his 85 degrees (~29.4 C), then I start to get really uncomfortable.
The other day, Thursday (?) maybe, I needed a prescription from Costco. The store closest to us (Manassas) didn’t have the med in stock. The next-closest stores are in places like Chantilly, Fairfax, Woodbridge, and other places in the dreaded Northern Virginia metropolis (one giant, heavily populated suburb of Washington, DC). Since I have spare time on my hands, I chose to go to the Winchester store because I knew it would make for a much-nicer ride. Plus, it would make it super-convenient to visit the unlisted LOVEwork I’d recently driven past on I-81 southbound near Clear Brook.
LOVEwork at I-81 SB Welcome Center
It actually made for a very nice ride. I didn’t leave early enough, though, because it started getting hot during the ride back. By the time I got into our garage, I was READY to get all that gear off. So ready, in fact, that I didn’t fully extend the kickstand. That meant that, when I got off of the bike, it fell over. It didn’t fall all of the way to the floor, it just leaned right up against Hubby’s pretty red Victory. Due to the angle, I could not get the thing standing up, so I had to ask Hubby for help.
It was embarrassing, but he didn’t give me a hard time. Luckily, it didn’t even scratch the Victory.
Yesterday, Saturday, we went for a nice little loop ride together. I planned a route to include four LOVEworks, so now I’m up to 81 visited!
LOVE in Stanardsville
Stanardsville is in Greene County. Within about the last year, a barn quilt trail was established there, which is why the LOVEwork has a quilt theme. One day, when we both have time, my friend Kelly and I are going to spend a day following the Blue Ridge Barn Quilt Tour. At the time of this writing, there are 59 barn quilts listed in the brochure! That’s a lot. Trails usually start small, maybe 10-20 barn quilts, and then slowly grow. To have that many so soon after establishing the trail is quite impressive! You can read more about it here.
The Stanardsville site was the last on the list. Temps were hovering around 80 at that point, so I adjusted the route on the fly and we headed home. Just in time, too. It was 83.3 degrees (28.5 C) when I pulled into the garage.
I made absolutely sure the kickstand was fully extended before I got off of the bike.
