Good Friday

My knitting life tanked but it's been a busy, non-knitting related productive and fun week.

I never could adjust to my new eye glasses.  I finally got where I could see with them for the most part, but two weeks later, I was still struggling to read with them.  Besides the reading issue, there were issues with the frames.  I kept having to go back to Walmart to have them adjusted and each time, the adjustment would cause a new problem.  By last weekend, not only could I still not see to read, but the hinges pulled my hair out every time I leaned forward, and I had a massive allergic reaction to the new nose pieces.  I ended up going back to wearing my six year old scratched pair of glasses and realized I could see better with them than I'd ever been able to see with the new glasses.  So, early this week, Walmart allowed me to return the new glasses for a full refund.  As much as I despise Walmart, I have to say, the eye doctor (Dr. Tsai) was great and the folks selling the eye glasses were fantastic to work with.  And the refund showed up in my bank account this morning so it is a good Friday!

Max is letting the neighbors know how happy I to have received the refund.

The boy child came home for a visit and a month-late birthday celebration.

He got impatient waiting for the birthday Boston cream pie (his favorite) to be served so he decided to do it himself.  Then he got a little testy when I tried to help.

On Wednesday Sarah talked me into going with her to 2nd & Charles.  There's a new one in Midlothian so we decided to check it out instead of making the trip up to Northern VA.  We each bought lots of books, had Chili's Molten Lava Cake and enjoyed singing along to our road trip music.  Okay, I had fun singing.  Sarah was tortured by my singing.  What ever.  If you are in the area & haven't visited 2nd & Charles, you should.  Besides an unbelievable number of books, they also have a large stock of music & musical instruments as well as a variety of TV fandom stuff.  And if you are a homeschooler.... The place is Heaven!  You could easily create your own year's worth of curriculum for less than $50.

And since we'd eaten the Molten Lava Cake, Sarah dragged me into the woods for a hike yesterday.  I'm proud to say, I am capable of walking today.  Apparently, I'm not as badly out of shape as I thought I was.

So, while Max is sad that no knitting got done this week,

Minnie is happy that I had a fun filled week.  Okay, she's really just happy because I'm not too sore to take her for a walk.

I'm working all weekend so if I don't make it back to the blog,

Happy Easter!

Dangerous Slope Ahead

It  happened again.

North Anna Battlefield Park

Sarah dragged me into the woods for a hike.  And once again, I let her choose the Blue Trail.

Even the trees were screaming, "No! Don't take the blue trail."

But we took the blue trail.

We made it to the end.  The trail ends at a lovely little, fast moving river.  It wasn't quite warm enough to dip our toes into the water, but we sat by the river for a while, eating our packed breakfast and reading.  (Neither of us ever leave home without our Kindles.)  It was a really nice way to spend the morning.

Let me rephrase that, the hike down to the river was a nice way to spend the morning.  The hike back up the Dangerous Slope was not so nice and I have to admit, I was in agreement with the screaming tree.  Or I would have been if I'd had enough breath left to scream.

Don't take the Blue Trail!

By the end of the hike, when the parking lot was almost in view, my poor legs were so tired I was  barely moving & practically tripping over the grains of sand on the path.

Meanwhile, Sarah was still full of energy.

Good grief!  I think I might need an exercise program.

Giving Thanks, Day 18

I'm just glad to be alive.  Sarah, my daughter, took me on another hike this past weekend.  We went to North Anna Battlefield Park.  It started off nice.

North Anna Battlefield Park

There was an easy path to follow.

North Anna Battlefield Park

The path quickly became covered with leaves but it was still an easy walk.

North Anna Battlefield Park

We walked beside and/or over several different little creeks.  And then, then we came to the sign.

Dangerous Slope

You see, before we crossed the first creek, we'd had to choose between taking the Blue path or the Gray path.  Sarah let me choose after telling me only that the Blue path was a little longer than the Gray path.  It was a beautiful day and we both needed some exercise so I chose Blue.

North Anna Battlefield Park

Let me tell you people - if given the choice, never, ever choose the Blue path.  When allowing me to make the choice between Blue & Gray, Sarah never bothered to mention that the website has a Blue Path warning.  We had to walk, slip, slide & crawl from the top of one mini-mountain to the top of the next.

North Anna Battlefield Park

And while we walked, slid, climbed & crawled, we could barely even see the path under all the fallen leaves.

North Anna River

A few minor heart attacks later, we finally made our way to the river which marks the end of the trail.

North Anna River

It's a pretty little river, but wait....  We're at the end of the trail.  The trail doesn't loop back around?  I've just suffered about 16 minor heart attacks climbing up and down hills and now I have to turn around and do it all over again?  In reverse?  Needless to say, my dear daughter is no longer the favorite child.

Toad

We eventually made it out of the woods and back to the glorious sight of our car.  The only wild life we saw, thankfully was one very large toad.

And after all that, somehow, my dear daughter has talked me into going back next week to give the Gray Path a try.

Let's go hiking she said

So, at some point this summer, my daughter & I had the, "I want to start hiking."  "OMG! I've been wanting to start hiking too." conversation.  I immediately went to Pinterest, pinned a bunch of pretty pictures, thought about buying hiking boots and pretty much put the thought out of my head.  But Sarah.... Sarah has decided she wants to hike the entire Appalachian Trail.  "Not right now, but sometime," she says.

Sarah keeps begging me to go with her to day-hike up the Blue Ridge Mountains and I keep putting her off.  It's too hot, it's too rainy, there'll be too many tourists....  Not to mention that what a normal hiker would consider a 'day hike' will probably take our slow, out of shape butts three days to hike.  Okay, my out of shape butt.  And when I say "hike" I mean trudge up hill, gasping for breath & tripping over tree roots.   And have I ever mentioned how Sarah goes into hysterics if there's any sort of flying insect within 300 yards of her?

Maymont

So today, we went to Maymont to practice hiking.  I love Maymont.  It's really just a huge, hilly park with animals where moms push baby carriages and kids run up & down the hills.  But there are hills.  Some of the hills are pretty steep & I figured it was a good place to go prove how out of shape we are.  Okay, okay - how out of shape I am.

Maymont's friendliest goat

We saw some goats.

These goats have a sliding board to play on.

And the bear.

Maymont's Bear

By the way, I finished my Autumn in Alta poncho last night.  The yarn I used is the exact color of this bear.  In fact, I sort of look like a big, giant bear in the poncho.  But that's a whole other story.

Owl

We saw this beautiful owl.

Bald Eagle

And this bald eagle doing his Exorcist imitation.

Buzzards

And of course, buzzards.  Knowing those buzzards were there, just waiting for me to falter on the path kept me going.  Being pecked to death by buzzards at Maymont is not the way I want to leave this world.

Maymont, #RVA

We 'hiked' some more and we climbed the waterfall.

Waterfall

I made Sarah look at the giant fish.  Sarah is weirded out by fish like I am by clowns.

Koi Pond

I have to admit, the giant overgrown goldfish are a little frightening.  Beautiful, but even I have to admit, a three foot long goldfish is a little bit intimidating.

Maymont

And we trudged along a few more paths, stumbling over tree roots.  Or maybe that was just me.

Geese at Maymont

And we saw some geese.  You know I'm a sucker for taking pictures of geese.

And as they say, revenge is a bitch.  Since I terrified Sarah by making her walk past the koi pond, she made me hike up a crazy steep hill on a tiny, narrow, muddy path that looked more like a goat path than a path meant for humans.

Maymont

Here we are at the top, looking back down.

So tonight, Sarah is talking about hitting a real mountain trail next week while I'm hoping my boss is reading this so he'll understand when I call out of work tomorrow because I'm too stiff & sore to put on the uniform.  It's a damn good thing Sarah isn't wanting to do the Appalachian Trail right now.

Reflections on hiking at Three Lakes Park

Did you miss me?  I don't know what happened to yesterday's TBT post.  I had one scheduled, but it disappeared.  I guess that will teach me to schedule posts in advance instead of blogging live.  Oops.

I don't have much knitting to show you.  I decided to go hiking instead of spending my time off this week knitting.  I've been wanting to get into hiking.  Damn Pinterest!  While looking for examples of hats, I came across pictures of hikers and it looked like fun.  And something I could do.  Hiking is just walking, right?

Of course, my daughter is laughing at me for wanting to become a hiker.  She knows I'm just in it for the shoes.  (And a cool backpack.  She doesn't know me as well as she thinks she does.  There's just something I love about an awesome looking, well worn backpack.)  Sarah also laughs at the idea of me hiking because she knows how I feel about going for a walk around the block.  It's just way too much effort.

But the idea of hiking through nature.... wearing cool, well worn and well fitting boots and toting that special backpack....  Of course my backpack only contains water & the camera.  Even in fantasy land, I don't think I'm ready for overnight hiking.

Anyway... Sarah & I packed up our cameras & water bottles (minus the cool boots & backpack.  I need to go shopping.) and 'hiked' around Three Lakes Park.

We saw lots of pretty reflections on the water.

Lots of creepy vines.  And poison  ivy.  And frequently, the creepy vines were surrounded by poison ivy so I'm wondering if the creepy vines are in fact poison ivy vines.  Probably.  What else would create such a deadly looking vine?  Ick.  Makes me itch just to think about it.

We saw lots of geese and one followed us for the longest time.  I imagine they think humans mean food.

And we saw a  heron.

 And Mr. & Mrs. Mallard feeding in a leaf & pollen strewn swampy area.

And some pretty flowers.

And this bridge.  I was fascinated by the lines of the bridge.

And thousands of turtles.  Well, maybe not thousands, but many, many turtles.  Turtles of all shapes and sizes and colors.

And lots of big fish that creeped Sarah out.  She doesn't like the way fish "just hang there in the water with their eyes bugging out, looking at you."  And as you can tell from that photo, it's spring in Virginia.  Lots and lots of pollen floating on the water.

After our hike, I came home and played with yarn and food coloring.  I'm proud to say that I did not dye my hands a weird color this time.

I turned boring white yarn into

burn your retinas, day-glow orange yarn.

Hmmm...  I just noticed - the new orange yarn is almost the same color as the turtle.  How cool is that?