Lake Sherwood Recreation Area

I had a fun night with a group of friends last night so today I was ready to recharge with some solitude and my cameras.  I slept in, then decided to drive up to Lake Sherwood for the morning.  It's a little less than an hour away, and I hadn't been there yet.

As I was driving along a winding road through the forest, I could see little waterfalls in the stream that paralleled the road.  I eventually found a spot to pull over right next to a neat area in the stream, and so I spent a good bit of time there before continuing on to the lake.

I love the sun streaming down in this one.

I eventually headed on to the lake, where signs informed me that all cars were charged a day fee from May through September.  Glad I came in November.  I didn't see a single other person the entire time I was in the area, which was perfect.  I like solitude on my adventures.  

I could hear the geese long before I could see them, and they were clearly not happy about my presence.  They took off for an even more solitary spot shortly after they caught sight of me.  I didn't even have time to adjust settings on my camera to get the exposure right.  And it was hard to focus because the sun was so bright. 

I kind of like the blurred effect in this photo.

This guy was also very unhappy with my presence and quite vocal about it.  It took me awhile to find him, but he was so loud I found him eventually, way up in a tree.  Thank goodness for zoom lenses...

It gets harder to find colorful photos every weekend.  

Now that it's halfway through November, there are hardly any leaves left anywhere.  

It has occurred to me that I'm pretty lucky it hasn't snowed at all yet.

I prefer colorful photos, but at this time of year it seems the only way to 

really get them is through heavy editing...

 Having fun.

Enjoying the peace and solitude.

I really wish I had thought to bring a book along.

Hanging Rock in the Clouds

Holly and I had this great idea where we were going to get up ridiculously early on a Saturday morning, drive the 45+ minutes to Monroe County, hike a mile up a mountain, and catch a sunrise and fog rising out of the valley from the Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory.  This was an awesome idea for really cool photos.  But sadly, the weather did not cooperate.  It was rainy Friday night, but we decided to take our chances anyway, because it's not exactly easy to schedule such a trip, and we knew if we didn't make it this weekend, it wouldn't happen.  So we stuck with our plan and headed out at 6 AM on Saturday even though it was really cloudy and slightly rainy.  We didn't quite make it to the top of the mountain before sunrise, but it didn't matter because there was no sun.  We saw fog in the valleys during our drive, but the top of the mountain was so high up in the clouds, we couldn't see down into the valleys.  So mostly, the trip was a bust.  I got a few ok photos, but nothing too spectacular.  And nothing like what I had been hoping for. And then it started raining and we had to hike back down the mountain in a cold miserable rain.  No fun at all.  I doubt the weather will cooperate for a fog-rising sunrise again this year, but maybe next year I will be able to try again on a perfect-conditions day.

Bike/Photo Adventure #3

Yesterday was a very long day.  It was a good day, but very, very long.  I got up at 4:20 to do my morning torture/sweatfest on the bike trainer.  I was out the door by 7 on my way to school to get my day started because "so much work, so little time." Since my early-to-rise-early-to-bed schedule seems to be working really well for me, I find I am most productive first thing in the morning.  The school day went well.  After school I had time to stop by the bike shop for an event they were having to support the Birthplace of Rivers Monument Campaign and have a beer with a friend.  And then I babysat until about 11:20 at night.  I was exhausted by then, but I needed a bit of time to read and relax in my own house before going to bed, so it was almost 12:30 by the time I fell asleep.  But somehow, towards the end of that 20 hour day, I decided that I needed to go on a bike/photo adventure today.  Because never mind the fact that I am tired, I need to do something fun with my Saturday, not spend it lying around at home.  Also, today was the Beckley 1/2 Marathon and I am sad that I didn't get to run it for the fifth time or win it for the third time.  So I needed to go do something else fun.

As much as I wanted to go somewhere to bike and take photos, I wasn't relishing the idea of a long car trip to get there, so I chose the closest place that I could think of : Babcock State Park.  It's a little over an hour away, but the other places I want to go are 90+ minutes away, so this was my best choice for the day.

I didn't set an alarm because I knew I needed sleep, but I was still up around 8.  Actually I woke up earlier than that, because my internal clock works really well on weekends, but 8 is when I decided I had had something approximating an appropriate amount of sleep.  I managed to get my car packed up and get on the road before 9:30.  When I got to Babcock a little over an hour later, it was gorgeous.  It was tempting to take photos first, but I knew I needed to get the bike ride done before breakfast wore off and I got too hungry to survive a ride.  So I only snapped a few photos, and then hopped on the bike.

I had mapped out two possible routes for myself.  One was a 40 mile loop, the other was a 25 mile loop.  I tried to talk myself into the 40 mile loop, but I haven't done a long ride in awhile, and I haven't done a long ride on this bike yet.  The 40 mile loop had a few serious climbs on it, and the gearing on this bike is not so friendly for climbs.  I am getting used to it, and I imagine it won't take too many weeks of consistent riding to adjust to it and be back to destroying climbs, but that might not happen until next spring.  So, I decided to wimp out and do the shorter loop.  I almost missed the turn, but I caught the numbers on the street name just in time and made the turn.  A mile or so later, the road turned into gravel.  A half mile earlier, I had had to outsprint a dog.  I didn't want to turn around, because I figured it would still be waiting for me in the middle of the road.  So I decided to be optimistic and hope that only a short stretch of the road was gravel, and that my bike would be able to handle the rocks without dumping me or flatting.  I ended up riding my shiny new bike down that awful gravel and dirt road for another mile before giving up.  I had to walk it over a few of the rougher sections.  The road was getting narrower and rougher, and there was no sign of it turning back into pavement anytime soon.  I realized that it was going to be many miles before I reached the road I was supposed to come out on, and that it was a terrible idea to risk most of those miles being gravel, so I gave up, turned around, and bumped and skidded my way back to pavement.  I managed to outrun the dog again.  

If I wasn't feeling up to the 40 mile loop before that adventure, I certainly wasn't up to it afterwards.  So I just backtracked the way I had come, a short way on Rt. 31, then on Rt. 41.  I took 41 back past the State Park until I hit Rt 60, at which point I had reached 19 miles.  I turned around at 60, took a short detour through another part of the State Park, and then headed back to my car.  I had parked halfway up a mountain.  I felt stronger than expected for pretty much the entire ride until I hit the bottom of that mountain.  Then I suddenly felt exhausted.  But I kept on spinning.  I reached the lake where I had parked at about 24.1 miles, and decided that not only was it silly to stop in the middle of a hill, but also that I should get at least 25 miles, so I continued up the hill.  It was rough.  I didn't know when the hill would end, and it seemed like it was going on forever.  But I finally reached the top, which was also the end of the road.  Then I got to coast back down the hill to my car.  

I was very calorie-depleted by that point, so I changed into clean clothes quickly and then devoured my picnic lunch before getting to the photography part of my day.  Since it was early afternoon, the sun was high and the light was terrible for photos.  Add to that the fact that my eye and/or cameras seem to be lying to me about whether or not photos are in focus, and I didn't get very many good photos from today.  But I got a few.  And I was able to edit some of the less-good photos to make them at least look kind of cool.  

All-in-all a fun day.  Yet another adventure where things didn't go entirely according to plan, but that's what makes it an adventure, right?  What matters in the end is that I had a good day and I made it home safe!

10/18/14 Chasing Waterfalls : Sandstone Falls

Today was Bridge Day, and just like last year, it was gray and cold out.  I went by myself the last two years and got some cool photos, but really didn't feel like going alone again.  None of my friends were able to go this year either, so I decided to skip it.  In the middle of the night last night, I decided that I should go somewhere else instead of sitting at home all day.  So I decided to check another waterfall off of my bucket list.

Sandstone Falls

I was driving along the road (still about 15 miles away from my destination) and saw a sign for an overlook, so I pulled off to check it out.  It offered a view of the falls from the opposite side that I would see them from eventually, and from high above them.  

 Just a little bit further down the road, there was another overlook, so I checked that one out as well.  It was a view of the river.  There was someone bird-watching there, and he pointed out a Bald Eagle's nest to me.  He also told me that the pair of eagles had been flying around a lot the day before, catching fish, and hanging out in the nest.  Of course they didn't bother to appear while I was there...

After the second overlook, I continued on up the river til I finally got to the bridge crossing it, then headed down river until I neared the falls.  I caught a glimpse of mist rising off the falls before I reached them, and pulled over to snap some photos.

Eventually, I reached the actual parking lot and set off down the boardwalk that overlooks the falls.

The leaves were colorful, the falls were awesome, and I had lots of fun taking pictures.  I even got out my tripod so I could take extra-cool photos of the falls.

After I took lots of photos, I went for a run along the river.  It was nice to run somewhere new.  It was also really flat.  I took the opportunity to run a 1 mile time trial off of a track.  I ran the TT during the 3rd mile of a 4+ mile run.  I finished it in 6:25.  Not my fastest, but not too shabby considering I woke up short of breath this morning, for no explicable reason.

After my run, I headed towards Bluestone Dam, which was sort-of on the way home anyway.  I had heard that there were frequent Bald Eagle sightings there.  But once again, I was disappointed.  And I didn't have hours to sit there waiting, so I had to head home.  I'll catch sight of one eventually!

A 50 mile bike ride and a spectacular hike

The cycling adventures continue.  My foot continues to hurt (or not) each day, with no rhyme or reason that I can figure out.  This week it felt fine for 3 days and then randomly started hurting again.  We had tried ultrasound at PT, and it didn't seem to help, so the PT made me some orthotics and told me to come back if they pinch/rub/don't work.  Gotta give them a few weeks to know if they are helping or not though.  If they don't work, it seems that injection is my only remaining option.  Yay fun.

Meanwhile, my back has been adjusting to life on a road bike.  Of my 4 rides last week, 2 were longer rides. One was 31 miles and the other was 50.  The 50 mile ride on Saturday took me south into Monroe County and then back to Greenbrier.  Lots of gorgeous scenery on that ride, it was a really nice day.  I'm still enjoying exploring new roads on my bike.  Eventually I will have exhausted all the possibilities and I'll have to start repeating long rides, but for now I'm going to enjoy new scenery as often as possible.

Sunday I went hiking with 2 friends.  We went to Devil's Marbleyard, near Natural Bridge, VA.  I went hiking there at the end of December, but it was cold and gray and the pictures didn't turn out too spectacular.  This time though, was spectacularly gorgeous.  The weather was perfect, the trees were green, and the sky was blue.  Perfection.

Sunlight through the trees.

My hiking buddies.

Check out that view!

Queen of the Mountain!

Cycling Explorations

Since I need to take time off from running, and I can't stand to not exercise regularly, I have had to embrace this whole cycling thing.  It was frustrating at first, because I didn't have the right muscle to ride with the same intensity that I was used to putting into my runs.  But after a few weeks, I have gotten much stronger, and am able to get a satisfying workout out of a bike ride.  It can still be hard to find the time for bike rides of a decent length, but I seem to be finding it.  I thought I was busy when I was running 30-45 miles a day, and now I find myself biking an hour or two, often longer on weekends.  Somehow it seems to fit in.  And on the days when it doesn't, I ride hard for 30 minutes or so.

My favorite part about cycling is that it takes me places my runs don't.  I am seeing parts of the area that I have never seen before, and since spring time has finally arrived in the Greenbrier Valley, the scenery is gorgeous, and often breathtaking.  The one-lane roads through farmland have very little traffic, but lots of cows and beautiful green fields.

I don't like stopping in the middle of a workout, so I don't have pictures of any of the scenery, except for today.  Today, the road I took turned unexpectedly into a dirt/gravel road.  Having already been chased by two different pairs of dogs, I really didn't want to turn around and backtrack.  So I took my chances that the map was correct and that the road would in fact continue to the next road I planned to take, and I stuck with it.  Parts of the road were decent, parts of it were very rutted and rocky and muddy.  But thankfully, my tires handled it beautifully.  I was rather angry about the state of the road, and desperately hoping I wouldn't end up lost, but as I looked around, it was so peaceful.  And every now and then I would get a glimpse of a breathtaking view as I wound my way up and down a mountain.  I had to break my no-stopping rule to snap a few pictures.

This was a part where the gravel road was relatively smooth.  

I love green trees and blue sky, such perfect weather!

Almost Heaven, West Virginia. 

What a view.

Eventually, the dirt road came to a T with a paved road.  With no street signs.  So I had to guess...up hill or down hill.  It wasn't how I remembered it looking on the map, but it turns out I hadn't looked closely enough at the map.  I knew that the place I was headed was most likely downhill, since it's near the river, so I chose downhill.   It turned out that where I had thought the road I started on continued straight and I needed to turn off to the left, it actually didn't go straight. The road I was on continued to the right, the one I had planned to turn off onto, was to the right.  I have no idea why that intersection wasn't labeled, but good thing I have a decent sense of direction! In the end, the road I took spit me out on a two lane road that was also unlabeled, but which I knew had to be the next road I wanted, Highway 63.  So, I made it home without actually getting lost, even though I felt lost for about half of the ride.  Adventuring is fun on weekends when I have the time for it!  Especially when the weather cooperates.

Yesterday, I went for my longest ride so far.  40 miles.  It didn't have any significant mountain climbs, so it wasn't particularly difficult, just long.  I actually felt like I could have kept going.  The only reason I didn't, was because the skies opened up and it started pouring when I was about 7 miles from home.  So, I got drenched.  It stopped raining right around the time I got back into town, which made it tempting to continue riding, but in the end the desire to get warm and dry won and I headed straight home.

Last week, I rode 90 miles, which I felt was pretty impressive for a busy person who has just picked up this new cycling hobby.  This week, I made a goal of hitting 90 again.  And then I hit a grand total of 118.9 miles for the week.  I would continue this quest to see how many miles I can ride in one week, but this coming week is looking pretty busy, so I suspect it will be a lower mileage week.  Time will tell.

Another week gone by

This week:

M: off

T: 4.7 / 41:02 / 8:43 (AM)

W: 4.7 / 40:31 / 8:37 (AM)

R: 6.75 / 48:17 / 7:09

F: off 

Sa: 12.04 / 1:37:00 / 8:03

Su: 6.75 / 54:05 / 8:00

week total : 34.94

I was going to take Thursday off this week because I didn't feel like getting up that morning, but then our weekly faculty meeting was over sooner than usual, and I felt energetic, so I decided to go for a run.  I started out slow, but my legs were begging for speed, so I picked up the pace about a mile in and pushed it for the rest of the run.  My lungs had a bit of trouble keeping up, but my legs felt great, and overall it felt really good to push the pace and work hard.  On Friday, I got home at lunch since we were having conferences at school and my only one was at 8 AM.  So I headed to Babcock State Park to take pictures.  I ended up doing quite a bit of un-planned hiking while I was there, so I got a good bit of exercise.  (Enough hill climbing to make my legs a bit sore the next day!)

exercises

T: 20 squats, 20 lunges

W: 20 squats, 30 lunges

Sa: 10 squats

Not so stellar on the exercising this week.  For some reason I always remember when I run first thing in the morning, but very rarely remember when I run in the afternoon.  Then again, I don't need the squats to warm me up for an afternoon run because I'm already warm from moving around all day.  

I had a busy but good weekend this week!  Saturday I hardly got a moment's rest between grocery shopping, running, soup-making for the Pub, taking Cheerleading Photos for a friend, and babysitting.  Today I caught some Fog Photos on my way home from Mass early this morning, and took Family Photos for a friend this afternoon.  I played with special effects on quite a few of the photos from this afternoon, it was entertaining.  And necessary on some of the photos...early/mid afternoon is a bad time to take photos, the sunlight was pretty harsh!

Oh, and dinner tonight was some delicious PB Beef & Broccoli.  Scrumptious.  

And I even managed to eat it with chopsticks without making too big of a mess.