Maine

Hot Weekend in Brooklyn

A toasty (100 degrees plus) weekend in Brooklyn, in pictures...

I loved all of the beautiful ironwork on the brownstones.

Brett looking REALLY thrilled to be drinking iced coffee and heading to the Brooklyn Flea. I was thrilled for reals.

The following are things I would have brought home, if I were not taking the subway and the train back to Virginia:

One gigantic metal squirrel. LOVE. We toyed with the idea of this being a weathervane, but decided it did not have the cardinal directions on it so it must just be a giant metal squirrel.

Prettiest old window ever. I would have put screen on the back and used it to display my earrings. OR just hung it somewhere as decoration on a wall.

I took this picture because of the HUGE sawblade, which is amazing. But on reflection, that old phone is pretty cool too.

What I actualy did bring home was 2 "Giant African Porcupine Quills" for my hair of course. And in case I needed a weapon.

Then we had ridiculus Venezuelan food at Caracas Arepas in Williamsburg. Yes we went all the way over there just for this restaurant and yes it was worth it.

Frankly I was a little bit afraid that Brett was going to leave me for whoever made these little balls of heaven: yo-yos. They are fried dough balls with fried plantains and cheese in them. Then you dunk them in molassas. Mmmmm and I had fresh watermelon juice.

This baby is an arepa. They are shells of polena (or cornmeal, or whatever you want to call it) around delicious fillings. Mine was avacado, white cheese, and plantain. Brett's was pork. The sauce on the side was some kind of guava sauce that tasted like a cross between a curry, a mustard, and a chutney. And just for shits and giggles, here is a shot of the sidewalk bathtub flowerbeds. :-D

Have a great Sunday! Tomorrow we are off to Maine...

Hike to Humpback Rock

Last weekend Brett, Lolly, and I headed out the Blue Ridge Mountains to hike Humpback Rocks. It was about an hour drive from Richmond, and the leaves were juuuuuust starting to turn (apparently if we had gone at the height of leaf season it would have been really crowded!).

The hike is at Mile Marker 6 on the Parkway. There are 2 areas at Humpback: one is a little walk around an old-fashioned farm, and the other is the hike that takes you to the top.



The sign at the trailhead says its a forty minute hike up the trail to Humpback Rocks, but its more like 40 minutes on the way up, and then much faster on the way down! Its a steep climb: about 800 feet in elevation over eight-tenths of a mile. It's a steep little hike!

The first part is wide terraced gravel steps. Pretty boring, but a nice little workout. WARNING for anyone who is hiking with a puppy: this is where the squirrels hang out, so get a good grip on your leash!

Then you encounter the beautiful handmade steps pictured above, and the hike starts to get interesting.


You go up and Up and UP, taking switchbacks and carved rock stairways until you are SO POOPED, and then finally...

...you reach the top! To the west is the Shenandoah Valley, to the east are the rolling hills of Virginia's piedmont, and north and south you can see the Blue Ridge. You can also see Waynesboro and Charlottesville, as well as the parking lot from which you came and the winding Parkway.
At the top, we cracked open a bottle of sparkling Spanish white and feasted on GORP that was not actually good old rasins and peanuts but instead dark chocolate chips, almonds, and blueberries.


Lolly loved her first hike--she pretended she was a mountain goat for the most part. We were very impressed by here surefootedness! Of course she got some water and buscuits at the top.


Also very cool were the hundreds of names carved into the rocks--I wondered how old some of them were? Are we talking 1800s here? Or are they a century's worth of UVA kids declaring their love for each other and the beautiful view? At first I was a little annoyed that people would carve their names into the rock and mar the natural beauty, but then I started thinking about all the history and how I was sharing the view with so many people before me.Then we headed back down, down, down the mountain...

Through the squirrel gauntlet...

...got our leash wrapped around a few unsuspecting trees...

And then drove to nearby Crozet, Virginia for the legendary Pizza!

We had heard about it because its in just about every regional guidebook and heard that celebrities such as Mohammad Ali, Sissy Spacek, and Dave Mathews make special trips for the pizza when they come through. We ordered a large cheese pizza and were not disappointed. Worth mentioning is that the place does not accept credit cards. They had a quite long list of toppings, but Brett was feeling like a purist. I was totally fascinated by the bulletin board of photographs from Crozet Pizza lovers around the world--there were pictures dating back from the 1970s to today, from the geographic north pole to Borneo to Crozet France, of people wearing their Crozet Pizza tshirts. Now that's devotion people!

We made a pact that we are going on more hikes, at least 2 per year now. In our 6 years together we have gone on 5 "real' hikes (it took quite a discussion to determine what "real" meant): Humpback Rocks, Old Rag, Franconia Notch in New Hampshire, Audra Park in WV, and Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica.

Any suggestions where we should go in the spring? Anyone want to join us? :-)

New Travel Desire: Mesa Verde

I found this picture by Shelley Munro on one of my favorite blogs, coco + kelley, and am now having daydreams of painting dusty steer skulls with tumbleweed blowing by as I climb around on big rocks a la Laura Croft.

(via Photobucket)

(via Photobucket)

It must be Friday, my brain needs a break!

But seriously, has anyone ever been there? I LOVE Native American art and culture. If anybody has any great tips about how to schedule a vacation in the area, speak up!

Lolly vs. The Beach

Last weekend we make the trek (FINALLY) up to the Eastern Shore and Chincoteague to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary. More on that later. We took the pup with us, and decided she needed to experience the beach! At the suggestion of the innkeepers at the Bed and Breakfast, we took her to the calmer Chesapeake Bay side of the beach so she wouldn't be too scared of the surf. You have to understand that going into this, we knew she refused to go in the baby pool and acted as though we betrayed her when we tried to get her into the James.

Here we are on the way... ("Mom where are we going?? What are you doing?? Can I sit on your lap??")


And upon our arrival...("What the heck is this place? Don't even try to put me in that water, sicko.")


We did throw her in twice.

She ran back out immediately.

("Hmm its windy here and smells kind of good.")


And then we buried her ball in the sand... ("I can dig all I want here and don't get yelled at!!!!!! Scccorreee! Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig Dig")

Brett and Lolly running back to the car. *sigh*

More about Chincoteague later, but this was just too cute to hold out!

Videos of Brett and I on our honeymoon zip line canopy tour in Monteverde, Costa Rica

These videos are posted on youtube, and they are about 15 seconds each. SOOOO MUUUUCH FUNNNN!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7vWhtj1ssk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34YOUpRRWaM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ril27ozWA8g

P.S. Lari, we totally had this idea first when we were in the 6th grade and tried to tie all the trees in my yard together!

Scouting at Nags Head

Yesterday Brett and I went down to Nags Head for the day to go to the beach. It was so great to find out that its about an hour and a half away. It was still to cold to get in the water, but the beach was SOOO nice, and not touristy like it is here. We packed a picnic lunch, and watched the lifeguards train on dummies, and there was a girl scout luau right next to us which was hilarious. They were doing the limbo, which made me think of Ashley of course because she was our brownie scout limbo champion! I totally wanted to play with them, but instead I just decided to prove to brett that I could still do cartwheels and a standing backbend...the only problem with the backbend was that once I dropped down into it, I couldnt get up!! haha. :-p We went to play mini golf after that, and then we went to Mama Kwan's, which was yummy as my coworker Natalie promised. I can't wait to go back in June for the bachelorette party because they have themed drinks, and for each one they have a matching cup you get to take home. I am SO ordering Louie the monkey drink so that I can drink out of a monkey all night! We got fish tacos, which had this delicious sauce on them that I think was just coconut milk and lime juice, and there were amazing asian maranated cucumbers on the side...mmmm....

Then we raced home to norfolk, because my friend Jessie graduated from Med School yesterday and she was having a barbeque at her house to celebrate. But on the way home we stopped at a farmer's market and got some LOCAL strawberries. OMG. heaven! Jessie's sister got her a tiffany's pendant necklace and on the back it was engraved "do no harm." I thought that was the best present EVER for a med school grad! Brett couldn't make it because he had a headache after being out in the sun all day, so poor Darren was stuck there while we talked all about wedding stuff (he and amy just got engaged) and babies, etc. Darren, Brett says he is sorry!!