A Colorful Stroll to Wrap Up Our Stay

Sunday, May 13

Our last day at Shenandoah River State Park (SRSP) afforded us the perfect weather for a long stroll.  The 57F (14C) temp we woke up to at 6:30a had risen just a few degrees by the time we set out on our walk two hours later.  Comfortable temps; plenty of sunshine and blue skies; a light breeze to keep the gnat-like bugs from forming a cloud around us.  Couldn’t have asked for better.

Some of the trails in the park may be described as “hiking,” but not the two that we walked this morning.  Both were flat with no elevation gain; one was crushed gravel and afforded plenty of shade; the other was gravel with no shade.  Admittedly, we didn’t walk the entire length of either trail, so I can only speak to the portions we experienced.  And the best part … we had the trails to ourselves for the three hours we were out there walking.  Oh yeah; there were two bikers, but they outpaced us quickly, leaving us to enjoy our stroll in peace and quiet.

We kludged together a nice walk for ourselves by combining parts of the
Culler’s (orange) and River (blue) trails.
[map courtesy of the Shenandoah River State Park website]

The center area between the two trails is a wide meadow with clear views of the Massanuten Mountains on the horizon.  Although the River Trail follows the Shenandoah River, there are no water-views — except in a few spots where the thicket of bushes and trees have been cleared.  These small clearings have a bench where people can take a load off, and we tried that once or twice; but as soon as we sat down, the bugs swarmed around us, so we limited these brief breaks.

Not much more to say about our stroll, so I’ll just share some of the photos I took of flowers and such along the way.  First the Culler’s Trail …

(I could have used my zoom lens here — not yesterday’s big mama; rather, my light-weight, but excellent 70-200.  There were several goldfinches that kept us entertained for a good portion of the trail by flying and landing just ahead of us, but always out of the reach of my Canon G-12.)

The view from the Culler's Trail was of this big  expanse of open space.

Left: Old fences decorate the scenery on the Cullers Trail.
Right: A cooperative tree swallow perches for a photo op.

Honeysuckle (top left); Spiderwort (bottom left); moth mullein (center);
would appreciate an identification on the last one.

Iris (top Left); yellow goatsbeard bud hosting a big spider (bottom left);
yellow goatsbeard (center); orange poppy [?] (right).

There was no information about this old cabin we came across on the trail … meant to
later stop by the visitor center to ask about it, but forgot to do so.

Peeking through a broken window pane garners these images of the interior of the cabin.

… and then the River Trail …

Left: Taking a right on to this bridge from Culler’s Trail puts us on the River Trail.
right: finally, a dragonfly that stays put long enough for me to take a picture.

White cabbage butterfly on dame's rocket.

Poison hemlock [?] (top left) and dame’s rocket blooms.

Where the River Trail briefly veers towards Culler’s Trail, we find a great picnic spot in the
front yard of one of the SRSP cabins.  Since the cabin is not occupied, and there is a nice
breeze to keep the bugs at bay, we have a quiet lunch here before finishing our walk.

Honeysuckle bushes where the River Trail veers towards the campground provide
one last photo op — a zebra swallowtail butterfly.

It was getting on towards noon when we returned to the coach.  After a few quick chores, we started packing things up for departure.  SRSP has a 3:00p check-out, which is very nice; no need to mess with late check-out requests.

The return drive was uneventful, and within two hours we had the fuel topped off and were at the storage facility to put the Phaeton to bed for a couple of weeks.  See you over Memorial Day Weekend — yes, potential for another episode of the “noisy camping neighbors” saga.

P.S.  Our noisy neighbors from yesterday were long gone by the time we returned from our stroll today.

Good Morning, Ms. E’Squared. Your Mission …

Saturday, 12 May

Isn’t that how the famous line from the Mission:Impossible TV series started out?  Of course, the mission was directed at Mr. Phelps and he was given the choice to accept or not.  Well, I had a mission today, and I accepted the challenge.  Am I satisfied with the results?  Eeehhh!  Let’s just say that I need plenty more practice.

Anyway, we had a great day today, even if it is ending on a bit of a sour note.  Why?  Because we’re holed up inside the Phaeton where the double-paned windows at least mute the noise generated by 10+ young boys camped in the site next to ours.  You can imagine the cacophony, can’t you?  All talking at the same time; each speaking louder than the other to get himself heard.  This has been going on for several hours now and there’s no hope of the noise dying down until quiet hours begin at 10:00p.

There is a group camping area in another part of this park.  According to the camp host, they did have reservations for sites down there.  Why they are here?  Why they were allowed to change those reservations for this campground, which is mostly for individual/family camping?  Why the chaperones put all of the boys in the site next to us and then dispersed themselves to three other sites?  We asked the questions, but didn’t get a straight answer from the camp host.  One thing’s for sure, should we return to Shenandoah River State Park (SRSP) for post-retirement camping, it will be during the off season or during the week.

Onto more pleasant things.

The map to the right shows the drive we took today.  Just so I could accomplish my mission.  You see, I bought a new lens not long ago and I need to figure out before the end of the month if I am keeping it or not.  The 300mm prime lens takes tack-sharp pictures — in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing.  Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.  I was happy enough with the practice shots I took with the camera sitting on the tripod, but I anticipate having to hand-hold this lens most of the time for wildlife photography.  So, that was the mission — take hand-held pictures of some four-legged critters (birds to be practiced on later).  Well that, and also figure out whether I can even lug the lens around for a couple of hours at a time.

With that in mind, we headed to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park where I was guaranteed to find some white-tailed deer.  Yeah right; they must have heard I was coming and went into hiding!  Anyway, it was still quite cool — only about 50F (11C) — when we entered the park around 9:00a, and it just got cooler as we drove the 51 miles (82 km) to Big Meadows.  Fleece jackets were the uniform of the morning.

When there’s no wildlife to photograph, you make do with other subjects.

Unfazed by the lack of wildlife, I donned my cotton carrier vest and we set out on a walk around the meadow to at least decide if the lens was going to be too heavy to carry around for any length of time.  You might recall seeing me wearing this vest in some photos I’ve posted in the blog.  It’s THE BEST THING I’VE DONE FOR MYSELF when it comes to my photography hobby; worth every penny I paid for it!  In no time at all, I knew carrying the 5.17 pound (2.35 kg) lens was not going to be a problem.  Around my neck or on my shoulder, I would have been unable to carry the lens for long, but using the vest — no problem at all.

images of the cotton carrier (from a different photo shoot).
Top left: vest with optional holster for second camera.
bottom left: angled camera hub to attach the camera to the vest or the holster.
middle: camera hooked up to the receptacle on the vest.
right: all geared up with two cameras; the fanny pack is for extra memory cards/batteries.

Then the lens gods smiled on me.  Just as we were heading back to the car sans deer photographs, I noticed movement in a thicket of trees in middle of the meadow.  Looking through the viewfinder confirmed that it was a small herd of deer — two does and three bucks.  Alrighty then.  Following the deer trails through the grass, we slowly approached them and I went to work clicking the shutter, making adjustments to my ISO and other settings, and clicking the shutter some more.  The deer turned out to be willing subjects.  They were more interested in grazing than the woman wandering around with a big lens in her hands, and I kept a respectful distance so as not to spook them.

The lens has a very shallow depth of field, which is great; but it’s going to take a lot of practice before I get the hang of using it just right.  The photos from this afternoon are a little ‘soft’; something else I need to work on improving.  At the moment, I am leaning towards keeping the lens, but a few more outings won’t go amiss in the coming weeks.  I’d already started working out with hand weights to build up my upper body strength; now I have even more reason to do so.  Of course, if I go out on frequent photo shoots and just heft this lens for a couple of hours each time, I won’t need the hand weights :-)

Mission accomplished, we left Shenandoah National Park through a gate further down on Skyline Drive.  It made our drive back longer, but we were able to make better time with higher speeds once we exited the park.  Finding a picnic table along the way, we stopped to enjoy an al fresco lunch before returning to the campground to enjoy a quiet afternoon.  Which we did — until the kids showed up around 4:00p.  At least they took off for a swim in the river and we were able to take advantage of an hour or so of quiet time to dine in our screen shelter before taking refuge in the Phaeton.

Tomorrow, we hope to go for a walk we kludged together from the trails running through SRSP; it will be a nice way to wrap up our stay.  No, the lens will not be going with us this time!

We Are Guests of Raymond R. “Andy”

Friday, 11 May

We’re camping at a new-to-us state park with a really long name — Raymond R. “Andy” Guest Jr. Shenandoah River State Park; we’ll just refer to it as SRSP.  This is the park to which we made a ‘toad-run’ in March to see if our Wilson trucker’s antenna set-up worked (post here) — without an internet connection, a pre-retirement camping trip to this park would not have been doable.

My workday is done, and the company laptop is packed away until Monday.  Now to get caught up on a two-day post as I enjoy the company of bunnies scampering in the grass across the road; a vole scratching in the gravel near our fire ring; a pair of bluebirds flitting about (but never landing long enough for me to train my camera on them).

We actually came in yesterday.  Making the 54-mile (86 km) drive was a cinch even under the gusty conditions we encountered along the way.

It’s a pretty straight shot for us to get to SRSP; a drive of about 1½ hours.

We arrived around 3:00p, just in time for us to finish setting up before my office email dinged to notify me that the file I’d been expecting was ready for my attention.  Having already worked on the file Wednesday, I had to merely check to make sure the format had not been compromised and make some minor tweaks.  Slow though the internet speed is here —  fluctuating between 2-3 bars — it was sufficient to connect to the corporate network to upload/download files and exchange emails to get my work done.  Considering there’s no signal — nada, zip, nothing — without the antenna, I can’t complain.

But enough about work.  Let me tell you a bit about SRSP.

You can’t pick a specific site when you make your reservation (through Reserve America, by the way).  We knew from our March recon trip that we could fit into just about any site, so we weren’t concerned.  Arriving on a Thursday meant we had our pick of sites and we chose site 1 on the upper loop — 50 Amp electric/water (no FHUs here), extra-long, spacious, paved, and level.  The rate: $32+tax/night.

Site 1 and the upper loop from the Campground Trail.
in addition to the lower loop (off to the right and not visible in this picture),
there are several campsites beyond the cabins in the distance.

There’s a very nice gravel patio with a fire ring and a picnic table.  The patio accommodates our screen shelter with room to spare.  There are no campsites on the passenger side; so no neighbors there.  The road to exit the pull-through sites in our row wraps around in front of us and beyond it is forested land; no neighbors there either.  And so far, no neighbors in the site on the driver’s side.  The sites are terraced to take advantage of the natural grade of the land, and that too adds to the privacy factor.

View of the patio from the low retaining wall that surrounds it on three sides;
the fire ring is in the bottom left corner (not in view in this picture).

This is a relatively new park; there’s little in the way of shade trees around the sites in the center of the upper loop.  The lower loop has more trees and some shade, but having noticed a sign for a “pop-up trailer rally” down that-a-way, we decided we could live without shade this time.  Don’t get me wrong — we have nothing against pop-ups; we just didn’t want to be in the midst of what promises to be party-central this weekend.

Our site and a morning guest!
We can park the toad behind or in front of the coach, and still have room to spare.

Though our day started on the chilly side — a mere 42F (5.5C) at 6:00a — the temps warmed up nicely under the brilliant blue, sunny sky.  By noon we were up to 69F (20.5C); plenty comfortable for an al fresco lunch under our screen shelter.  Speaking of the shelter, we’re so glad we have it; gnat-like bugs hover in a cloud about our heads whenever we step outside.  They don’t bite, but they are irritating; especially when the breeze dies down.

Daisies (left) and multiflora roses are everywhere around the campground.

With my workday and Mui’s chores at an end, we decided to take a stroll before dinner.  SRSP has a bunch of multi-use trails; all clearly marked with colored blazes that indicate the name of the trail as well.  After studying the map, we settled on a short walk on part of the Campground Trail, which starts out near our site.

Trail map courtesy of the SRSP website; I marked up the walks we kludged together
from existing trails and roads.  Today’s walk is the purple dotted line;
you get a sneak peak at the walk we have planned for Sunday (orange/blue line).

The heavily forested trail is rated moderate, with some steepish parts, but nothing that a relatively fit person can’t handle.  We walked only as far as Culler’s Overlook, a very popular spot in the park.  It is named for Everette and Nettie Cullers, who once owned and worked a chunk of the land in the valley, and protected the river along the boundary.  (In 1999, the Commonwealth of Virginia purchased some of that land from Merle, their son, adding two miles of scenic river frontage to SRSP.)

Left: A look at the Campground Trail as we get started on our walk.
right: the view from Culler’s overlook includes a glimpse of the Shenandoah River and valley.

Rather than take the buggy trail back to the campground, we opted to walk along the main road where a light breeze kept the swarms of bugs at bay.  Back at the site, what better way to round out the day than with an al fresco meal :-)

Well, the post is written, but I’m not going to even attempt to post it now; the slow internet would just make it an exercise in frustration.  In fact, I’m going to pull the plug on connectivity this weekend and catch up on my reading; there’s a stack of magazines begging to be whittled down.

P.S.  For those who are curious, the park is named for a 27-year member of the Virginia House of Delegates who died of cancer in 2001.

I Have “Mitaines Rouges”

Saturday, 5 May

The picture below might lead you to think that winter has returned to Virginia.  It hasn’t.  I simply couldn’t resist trying on my brand new “mitaines rouges” to show them to my penguin buddy!  He approves!

These fleece-lined red mittens are gift from Sue of Bigdawg and Freeway fame!  It turns out that I was the lucky person to leave the 5,000th comment on her blog and she wanted to reward me to mark the milestone.

Thanks Sue, I greatly appreciate the gift; but I sure hope I won’t have to wear them anytime soon ;-)

Feliz Cinco de Mayo

Saturday, May 5

Well, I don’t have any photos taken on Cinco de Mayo, so this birthday photo taken at one of our favorite restaurants in Salt Lake City, Utah — Café Pierpont — will just have to do for our heartfelt wishes for everyone to enjoy this day.

We plan to go to Tequila Grande, our favorite Mexican café in Vienna, Virginia to celebrate the occasion tonight, but whether there will be any photos to share is still TBD.