weekend adventures | tubing the shenandoah

On the last Saturday in September, we celebrated summer's last hurrah with a tubing trip down the Shenandoah River. I'd been trying to make this excursion happen all summer, but with vacations and crappy weekend weather forecasts, we didn't pull it off until summer's eleventh hour. Actually, it was the third day of fall. But no matter, the weather was perfect and getting out on the river was a great way to extend summer.

Our friend Bryan is always game for an adventure, and when all of our other friends already had plans for the weekend, the three of us decided we weren't going to miss out on the perfect weather forecast or the chance to squeeze in one last summer activity. We booked a three mile float with Front Royal Canoe, donned our river shoes and swimsuits, packed a couple of coolers of sustenance (ok, it was beer), lathered up with sunscreen, and were driven in an old school bus to the launch point. Our coolers were even fitted out with their own tubes. Redneck fun at its finest.



I figured the tube adventure was a good opportunity to practice taking photos with the GoPro I got in July. Over the summer I had tested out my new toy at the beach and in Iceland, with mixed results. One we got on the river, I strapped the camera to my arm, but it kept sliding, so I ended up strapping it to my knee. I find it really hard to set up a photo with the GoPro (or even tell which mode I'm in), so I just pushed the button randomly and literally shot from the hip. Er, knee. Once again, I got a lot of awkward pictures of my arms and legs and other random body parts...

Still, it was fun to shoot some pics on the river without worrying about how to keep a camera dry. Don't let these "action shots" fool you. It was slow going on the river. Really slow going. A couple times we asked each other "Are we even moving?" The trip was supposed to take 3-4 hours, but we had almost 6 hours before we had to get the tubes back to the outfitter. Plenty of time! We had all day to mosey down the river. (Foreshadowing!) We didn't bring our phones with us and had no idea what time it was (and no way to contact anyone!) It was SO liberating. All we had to do was float.




This was definitely the most relaxing thing I did all summer. The sun was shining, the water was clear and refreshing, and the views were gorgeous. I literally had nothing to do but sit in a giant inflatable donut and drink beer. I didn't even have to leave the tube to pee! I think this is the only scenario I've ever experienced where peeing was easier for girls than guys!

(I'm peeing right now.)

We quickly learned that it was best to tie all our tubes together so we could talk without drifting apart (and so we all had easy access to the beer cooler.) This also worked well when we hit slow spots and the boys got out of the tubes to pee pull us, and I could sit my lazy butt in my inflatable toilet tube and pee float while being towed. This is the life.

We eventually stopped for lunch and while we were eating Larry pointed to a black shape down the river. "Is that a cow in the river?" he asked. We scoffed at him, and then the black shaped moved its head! It was a cow in the river!

Another awkward GoPro photo. With cows in the background.

By the time we got back in our tubes, the cow had moved to shore, but we found a whole herd watching us wearily from the river bank. We slowly floated past the herd (and some idiot girls who nearly rammed the wading cows with their canoe while trying to take selfies with them. PSA: Cows don't like selfies!)

T-E-A-M-W-O-R-K

Our little flotilla slowly floated on. It seemed to be taking a very long time to travel three miles, but luckily we were well-stocked with refreshments.









And then we realized the sun was starting to set and river came to a virtual halt. What the heck time was it anyway? We had to have the tubes back by 6:30, but it couldn't possibly have taken us longer than the 4 hours maximum time it was supposed to take to float the river, could it? We started getting worried. The river wasn't moving at all and the boys got out of the tubes to tow us. The whole trip the river had been perfectly clear and about two feet deep, but suddenly the river was five or six feet deep and full of muck. When Bryan mentioned that he had sunk knee-deep in slime, I made the decision to stay in my tube. The guys spent the last 20 minutes of the trip swimming through literal sludge to get us back in time. Thanks, guys!

It was 6:15 when we returned our tubes. Somehow it had taken us five and a half hours to float three miles!

But still, I can't wait to do it again! It was great forced relaxation after a summer spent stressing and introverting. (Time in nature makes everything better.) Why didn't we do this every weekend over the summer? Next time, I'll try to round up a bigger crew (who's in?), but that probably won't happen until next year. That Saturday ended up being the last day of summer weather in Virginia. By Sunday it had dropped ten degrees and by Monday I was wearing a sweatshirt. It's been raining ever since.

And with that, summer 2016 comes to a close. I'm hoping there's still a chance to get back on the river this fall - maybe in a kayak...

the summer of blackberries

If I remember the summer of 2016 for anything, it will be for the Olympics and the blackberries. I've spent the past few months avoiding society and generally hiding from the world. Perhaps it's not the most constructive way of dealing with things when life gets tough, but it's what I tend to do in overwhelming, uncomfortable, and stressful situations. So I've spent the summer as a homebody - drawing in my sketchbook, watching the Olympics on TV, and eating my weight in blackberries.

I like to go berry picking in the summer and on the last day of July, Larry and I set out in search of some nature therapy and some berries. At the time, I wanted blueberries. I knew the blueberry season was coming to an end, but we checked the websites of several farms which said there was still scattered blueberry picking available. We decided not to go to our usual berry farm and to try somewhere new, so following the directions on the website, Larry called Catoctin Mountain Orchard to verify that they were open and had blueberries available. The answers were yes and yes, so we drove 65 miles to Thurmont, Maryland. Upon our arrival, we inquired about blueberry picking and were told "Oh, we don't do u-pick on Sundays." WHAT. I was more than a little peeved. What's the point of calling ahead if you get incorrect information...anyway, it was time for Plan B. So we headed back to our favorite, reliable farm, Butler's Orchard, in Germantown. In the past, we've picked blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries at Butler's, but it had been a few years since we were last there. I was dismayed to learn that they now have a cover charge to get onto the picking fields. It really irritates me to have to spend money to get into a place where I am going to buy something. That being said, since we had paid a cover charge, I didn't feel bad about sampling a few berries straight off the vine. (Maybe this is why they have the cover charge? Are people eating the produce in the fields? Anyway, between the two of us, the cover charge was equivalent to the cost of two pounds of berries, which we certainly did not eat from the vine!) Enough complaints, though, onto the picking...

We drove up to the blueberry fields, and as we had been warned, the blueberry picking was "scattered." There were very few berries, and the berries that were left were puny. It wasn't much fun, so we headed to the blackberry fields instead, which were dripping with huge juicy berries. We picked almost 9 pounds of blackberries! I've lost interest in carrying my DSLR camera with me and photographing everything these days, so here are a few iPhone pics:







Everyone always asks me what I do with 9 pounds of berries. For a berry-addict like me, it isn't hard to use up all those berries, plus I enjoy the challenge of finding and testing new recipes. It was Iron Chef Battle Blackberry in the Smoellke Test Kitchen and I think blackberries have comprised 75% of my diet over the past few weeks. I love trying new recipes, but honestly, my favorite way to eat any berries, is straight up in a bowl. Blackberries are also a great drink ingredient, so I made more than a few purple cocktails.

Here are 15 ways we ate and drank blackberries this summer, as pictured above, left to right:

 1. Straight up with a little sugar
 2. Blackberry Gin Fizz
 3. Blackberry and Pecan Grilled Pizza
 4. Blackberry Piña Colada
 5. Big Ass Salad with Blackberries and Fig Balsamic Vinaigrette
 6. Blackberry Whiskey Sour
 7. Blackberry Cheesecake Galette
 8. Blackberry Mezcal Smash
 9. Blackberry Cream Pie with Toasted Oat and Sesame Crumb Crust
10. Bourbon Blackberry Collins
11. Vegan Pancakes with Blackberry Syrup
12. Blackberry Shrubs: Blackberry-Rum Shrub and Blackberry Bourbon & Maple Syrup Shrub
13. Blackberry Cornmeal Muffins
14. Blackberry Pineapple Smash
15. Blackberry-Pineapple Sidecar

That Blackberry-Pineapple Sidecar is one of my favorite cocktails ever. I may have drank three last night. They're good medicine when you've had a tough few months, but perhaps an even less healthy coping method than hiding under a rock. ;)

And with that, all the blackberries are gone and the Olympics are over. Until next year/2020...

the headless squirrel

Sigh.

Another day, another dead animal in the backyard, another haiku (or six). What luck that decapitation has five syllables!

More backyard drama:
Banjo has a bloody beard.
A headless squirrel.

Just another day 
in the Smoellke backyard. The
body count is high.

Two dogs, one body.
At least it wasn't a fox.
Stop killing things, jerks!

Another squirrel.
And what happened to its head?
Decapitation.

"The head is torn off!"
Larry investigated.
"Want to see a pic?"

Yummy squirrel brains.
A backyard delicacy.
Banjo licks his chops.

weekend adventures | hiking rose river loop

Larry and I have been trying to hike as much as possible in 2016. We've always been good about hitting the trail whenever we have a nice weekend, and we hike a lot when we travel, but this year I've been trying to plan out some hikes ahead of time and be a little more intentional about it.

After our short walk on the A.T. in February, and reading about the National Park Service's A.T. Hike 100 Challenge, I set a goal of hiking 100 miles in 2016. I realize this isn't very far, and that a seasoned thru-hiker can complete 100 miles in three or four days. But I am not a thru-hiker - I am a weekend hiker who is just trying to get outside and get some exercise whenever I can. Our typical weekend hikes are about 5-6 miles, which means we'll need to hike 15-20 times this year to hit our goal. Considering that the only months that generally have acceptable hiking weather in Virginia are March through June and September through November, that means we need to hike 2-3 times per month. And since we work during the day and live in the suburbs, we only have a few weekend days per month available for hiking, and that all depends on weather, and if we don't have house projects to do on the weekends. Anyway, that's the long-winded backstory to our little goal for the year.

With spring approaching, I created a trail log and started researching hikes in VA/WV/MD, to avoid the dreaded Saturday morning "Where should we hike?" discussion. I think Larry and I had both been getting a little bored with local hiking because we felt like we'd done every trail in the area. Obviously, this is not true, but we were definitely stuck in a rut and needed to discover some new trails, branch out a bit, and challenge ourselves. We've mostly hiked in Northern Virginia and the northern part of Shenandoah National Park. Virginia is a big state and there are many other regions that we need to explore. It would just take a bit of planning ahead. I found Virginia Trail Guide to be a great resource, and came up with a long list of potential hikes, which I taped to the wall in my office. They ranged from easy local trails for when we only have a few hours or want to bring the dogs, to trails in Shenandoah that we've missed (we still haven't hiked Old Rag, but it's on the list for this year!), to hikes in the southwestern part of the sate that will require a road trip and weekend cabin accommodations, to more ambitious hikes with steep climbs that I feel like we need to train a bit for first. I was pretty amazed at some of the incredible hikes that Virginia has to offer - Devil's Marbleyard, Mount Rogers, Brumley Mountain Trail in Great Channels, Cascade Falls, Devil's Bathtub, McAfee Knob, to name a few - and it got me excited about exploring our state again. Who knew there were boulder fields, slot canyons, and wild ponies on the trails in Virginia?

This post is going to be a bit of a let-down after that introduction, as we didn't try any of the ambitious hikes on my list, and instead opted for a 4-mile loop in good ol' Shenandoah. I'd actually been wanting to hike Rose River Loop for years since I'd seen it described as one of Shenandoah's best trails for streams and waterfalls. We headed out to Shenandoah the day after we visited Hillwood Gardens. It's always surprising how far behind the seasons are in the mountains. With spring in full bloom in DC, it was a bit disappointing to get out to Shenandoah and see that everything was still brown. I lugged my camera up and down the trail (which seemed to go on forever, and felt like much longer than 4 miles!) and took very few photos, because brown-on-brown just isn't that photogenic. It was still a pretty trail along a stream with lots of waterfalls, but I imagine it being a lot prettier in late spring/early summer.

Anyway, here are a few photos of Larry's back hiking through the brown:

Spotted in the wild: Two dorks, inadvertently matching

I'd love to go back to Rose River Loop when there are leaves on the trees and we could take a dip in the pools, but that probably won't happen any time soon, because there are lots more trails on my list and lots more mountains to climb...

weekend adventures | exploring hillwood gardens

Spring is always such a beautiful, yet fleeting, season in DC. It seemed to disappear even more quickly than usual this year, I think because we were traveling and because horrible weather (a month of rain) kept us from enjoying our usual outdoorsy activities. But in the middle of April, we had a weekend of perfect weather, so we took my mother to explore Hillwood Gardens for her birthday. The gardens were in full bloom, the sun was shining, and the sky was vivid blue.

Hillwood Gardens is an estate purchased by Marjorie Merriweather Post in 1955. Marjorie was the owner of Post Cereal, the founder of General Foods, and the richest woman in America. We toured the mansion, and it was ridiculous what money could buy - she collected Fabergé eggs, French and Russian art, and jewelry, had multiple estates, and a huge staff that kept everything running smoothly. I much preferred the gardens to the interior of the house (which was filled to the brim with all the expensive useless things that money could buy). But despite her tastes in decorating (so many portraits of herself!), Marjorie was a philanthropist, an excellent employer, a skilled businesswoman, and an animal lover.

But back to the gardens! I think of DC as such an urban space, and always find it surprising to stumble on gardens and wooded areas within the city. From the mansion's portico, there was actually a view across the lawn to the Washington Monument in the distance. Just imagine the garden parties you could have here. Someone get me a cocktail!








Most of my photos were taken in the Japanese garden because that was my favorite. But there was also a pet cemetery, a cutting garden, a French parterre, a putting green, a rose garden where Marjorie's ashes are located, and the lunar lawn which is watched over by Leo the stone lion and which offers that billion dollar view towards the Washington Monument. While I enjoy the gardens at the National Arboretum more, what's remarkable to me about Hillwood is that it was a privately owned residence. It's a lifestyle I just can't imagine living, though it was fun to pretend for a day.