Home Sweet Home...

Whew! We are back, and what a fabulous adventure we had! There was excitement! Peril! Marshmallows! All the makings of a fine story.

Kyle had a very grown up appointment on Monday morning to get us some very grown up life insurance now that Henry is 4 and it has finally set in that we need to think ahead for more than just ourselves. What? It only took 4 years! After he got back, we piled everything we own (or maybe it just seemed that way) into the car and headed off to Damascus, VA. It was a pretty uneventful ride and we got there in the early afternoon. We camped at the Beartree Recreation Area, a name which conjured up images of a KOA nightmare for me, but it was actually an amazingly well maintained and private place. We had a secluded little site with vacant spots on every side of us, which is always nice.

We started setting up out gear right away.


Henry was a huge help.

Blue Monster just sat on his butt the whole time and let us do all of the work.

Henry's sleeping bag laid on the ground looking menacing. Until...


Well, I told Henry to thrash about and look like he was getting gobbled up, but all I got were a few giggles and a "That's silly, Mommy".

After everything was set up we decided to check out the beach we had heard about down by the front entrance. This is us driving. Aren't I soooooo arty?

The beach was really nice and quiet and there were barely any other people there. I am really not as antisocial as I am coming off here, always talking about how I loved the fact that no one was around. It is just... I don't know. It was nice and relaxing.

That little speck off to the left is Henry.

He kept digging in the mud and talking about how he was making "strudel". I honestly have no idea where that came from. I am fairly certain that there has been no strudel making in my house. So bizarre.

I think he saw a little blue gill in the water.

He had a blast splashing around with his Daddy, who has a far higher tolerance for lake swimming than I do. We went back to the site and cooked dinner and made s'mores and all of that good stuff and then we all turned in at around 9ish. Henry insisted on being zipped into my sleeping bag with me which didn't make for the best night's sleep, but whatever.

Yesterday morning we got up and headed into town in search of a cup of coffee. After Kyle and I got our caffeine fix and Henry licked a pat of butter off a bagel he claimed to be eating, we went next door to pick up the bikes we rented to ride the Virginia Creeper Trail. The place we rented the bikes from was called SunDogs. If you decide to go to Damascus, VA to ride the creeper trail, I would suggest trying a different place. They just weren't very friendly. Having a little one with us (and using him as an excuse for not having to actually exercise on our vacation) we took a shuttle to the top of the mountain. It was awesome, except for the woman sitting behind us who got carsick and threw up into a bag for the last ten minutes of the ride. Ew.


A mere 20 minutes after getting there, we had the straps on the little trailer figured out and we were ready to go.

The ride was awesome. It is 17 miles back to town, most of which is slightly downhill. This is a good thing, because Kyle's bike lost its chain 3 times (every time he switched gears) so he was stuck in first gear the whole time. This meant that every time he did have to pedal it took about 55 pedals to make the wheel go around once. I thought it was hysterical and kept humming the song from The Wizard of Oz, you know when the Wicked Witch lady is riding her bike? I don't think that helped the situation.

We stopped for lunch by a creek:


The Creeper Trail is an old abandoned railway (which you would know if you followed the link above, tsk, tsk) so it goes over a lot of really cool wooden bridges.

At about mile 14 Henry took a little snooze.

Here's another one of those really cool restored railway bridges. There were tons of picture taking opportunities, but to stop and take a photo every time would have kind of ruined the momentum of the trip. Things kind of went pear shaped after the bike ride- starting with every single restaurant in Damascus, VA closing at 5pm except for one pizza buffet. What's up with that? On our way back from the luscious pizza buffet, it started raining. Hard. I started patting myself on the back for being such an awesome and prepared mom and bringing a DVD player in case we got stuck in the tent. That lasted about 15 minutes into Chicken Little when the battery died because I forgot to charge it up. Oops. Kyle saved the day by spinning tales about not-slimy-but-dry-flying-pirate-worms (per Henry's request) until the little beastie fell asleep in the tent and we all konked out. We woke up, hopped in the car and raced back home (getting a speeding ticket on the way-DOH!) to find some great mail waiting for us. A huge package of undies from Sonya at Sublime Threads (including 2 new prints which I'll post pictures of later) and reprints of my soap ingredient labels that Moo! messed up the first time around. WooHoo! Now I need my package of goodies from Fishcakes and my mail week will be complete.

As far as knitting goes, I got next to none done. I am almost done with the waistband of Kristal's shorties. Kinda sad. We will be gearing up for Henry's 4th birthday party on Saturday for the rest of the week,but I hope to get cranking soon.

Hope everyone is well.