April Showers Bring…

Many MORE May showers! Seriously, it’s been raining/drizzly for the past 5 days or so! Whatev – it’s sunny outside this morning AND…….

(Wait for it….)

My mom finally made her flight!!!!

I’m pretty darn excited

Ok, let’s get to it, shall we?

Before leaving our French middle-of-nowhere cabin in the woods, Connor and I enjoyed a rural booze walk (yes, that’d be French cabernet wine in an Evian water bottle)

 

and made a delicious final meal of cheeseburgers and all of our veggie leftovers.

Who says you can’t find a good burger in France?

Which was followed by a few friendly board games – namely Trivial Pursuit and Guess Who

The next morning, we got on the road and headed to wine country. We couldn’t check into our latest airbnb spot (another shot out to that website, by the way! It’s working wonderfully for booking as we go on this trip! I, once again, highly recommend using it for any travel accommodations!), so we killed some time wandering around the nearby city of Beaune.

A few hours later, we did check in,

Modest, but clean and comfy… AND located on top of a wine bar

and then rounded out our evening with a fancy French 3 course meal in Beaune. It was lovely However, I was too busy trying to look like I belonged there, so I didn’t opted against photographing my food, sorry :/

Some pictures of the next day’s touring around:

Inside Hotel Dieu in Beaune which used to be a hospital – this is where the wealthy patients roomed…

Connor inside the courtyard of Hotel Dieu

Then Connor took a little mini roadtrip on his own and found this cool chateau nearby

After 2 nights in wine country, we set off again. Not without a little pre-road trip fuel-up, though!

Our first chain restaurant experience while abroad at La Pataterie. I guess it’s a bit like an Applebee’s? The food was actually really good! I got a monstrous salad with toast topped w/ salami (which I removed) & a tomato tuna spread and Connor got a huge baked potato topped w/ a salmon quiche-like spread & side salad.

After about 6 hours of driving, we arrived at the Yellow House in the Black Forest near Oppenau Germany.

Our home for 3 nights

It’s located in a really cool area up in the mountains surrounded by the Black Forest and waterfalls and medieval ruins!

After a little hike yesterday afternoon, we drove into town for some lunch where we found a friendly little German lady to serve us beer and grub while she prattled along happily in German unfazed by our utter ignorance

As is usually the case for me in Germany, I had no idea what I was ordering.  Turned out to be a dumpling-type dough casserole covered with LOTS of cheese and some onions. Definitely a heart attack on a plate, but still pretty tasty

With full bellies and a little buzz (the little old German lady twisted my arm into a 1/2 liter of hefeweizen – I didn’t wanna insult her, so I obliged…) we marched along to the grocery store and stocked up on snacks (cherry tomatoes, carrot bread *not to be confused w/ carrot cake*, yogurts) and BEER. Then we took another hike up in the mountains/forests of Oppenau before heading back to our Yellow House home

As for today, I plan to take advantage of the sunny morning and hike to the waterfalls again and then get cleaned up to pick up my mama!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still French-in’ It Up…

Whew! I have to admit, the past couple days have really taken a bit of a toll on both Connor and me! Fortunately, we arrived yesterday at this little haven in middle-of-nowhere, France

Recap of what’s been going on lately:
We ate, drank, and toured ourselves silly in Paris and finally left Friday morning via rental car.

Lots of cheese, bread, and my new favorite beer : Leffe!

Atop skyscraper in Montparnasse giving a view of all of Paris (Eiffel tower in the bkgrd!)

Posing in Luxembourg Gardens

Lots of interesting statues and gorgeous flowers

Right before we were yelled at for standing on the lawn – apparently that’s frowned upon in Luxembourg Gardens… I guess that’s how they keep the lawns so nice

Outside the Louvre

Inside the Louvre

Our post booze-walk meal: paella-style pizza!

Our rental car – purple Fiat Panda

Sadly, my mom was supposed to have arrived in Paris Friday morning and joined us on our road trip but her flight was overbooked and it isn’t looking like she’s going to make it We’re still hopeful and keeping tabs on flights to see if maybe she can make it out in the next day or two… Anyway, that’s been a source of anxiety and disappointment. 

I want my mommy!

Then there’s been the actual commencement of road-tripping. Let it be known – navigating in/around/out of Paris via car sucks! There may have been tears shed, shouting, ugly words, etc. before we successfully managed to get the hell outta there… A few hours later we decided to stop and visit a chateau:

Chateau du Blois

Not my picture – but we did see/climb this staircase

 

Looking at the chateau museum staff guy as he yells at me in French… but still a good view of the Gaston wing behind me…

tapestries!

It was a nice stopover on our way to Amboise where we naively thought we could just putz on into town and snag ourselves a little hotel room.

Apparently, everyone and their brother had been reading the same Rick Steve’s book on France or something. I was shot down by about 5 hotels and even basically hung up on by the tourist information hotline when I called inquring for room suggestions!

So we drove another hour or so and ended up in a generic Best Western-esque hotel in suburban Tours, France. It was late, we were tired, hungry and cranky. Fortunately, we had wine and cheese and bread to set us straight. It was a low key night because we were beat, but we did succeed in booking a remote cabin in the French countryside. We decided we needed a break from people and some solid R&R with books, booze, and sleep  So we got up yesterday and excitedly headed out to our countryside cabin We checked out a Chateau along the way too…

It’s inside an actual medieval city! And people actually live inside the city! Those are garages…

Next stop was La Coterie Lodges – run by a lovely British woman who has lived in France for the last 10+ years. We’re her first guests of the year, but she was hospitable enough to take us on such short notice. We were so relieved and grateful. So, since arriving late yesterday afternoon, we’ve unpacked, stocked up on food, wine, beer, and SLEPT I cooked dinner last night: fish and some veggies with cheese and bread on the side (of course)

Then we pretty much went to bed – Connor actually clocked about 12 hours last night – unheard of, for him! As for me, I’m feeling a bit more like myself. Sleep has helped as well as knowing we’re not in any hurry to do anything or go anywhere. I’ve even cranked out two 30 minute jogs yesterday and today – those did wonders for me, let me tell ya. I feel much less like this:

Turns out excessive wine, bread & cheese will do this to you – how ’bout that…

????’s

- Do you enjoy road trips or do you prefer to just stay put in one place and tour around there when on vacation? I was definitely ready for a change of scenery and to get out of Paris, but I’m not a fan of sitting in a car for hours on end – I feel sluggish and bloated and my eating habits go to crap. I think Connor and I are definitely gonna scale back our initial driving plans which means we won’t make it to as many places, but we’re both A-ok with that…

 

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

After failing twice to go running outside this morning because of the rain here in Paris (not that weather.com or wunderground.com is acknowledging said rain – they both claim it is sunny and 60 outside… Um, no, it’s been raining for hours now!), I’ve decided to just gracefully admit defeat and take off my running shoes, eat some Brie, and write a post

So after our two hike-filled nights in Cinque Terre (here and here), we made it to Florence and spent one solid day checking it out. I, unfortunately, was just a bit worn out by the time we got around to touring around Florence, so I didn’t make the most of it like I wish I had. It is a small city but really quite interesting with lots of art-y attractions to see and experience. I wouldn’t mind coming back some day

(Connor set out a but earlier than me and went inside a church and checked out the beautiful gardens)

(I met up with him a couple hours later in one of the crowded piazzas)

On our way out of Florence Friday, we stopped by Pisa to check out the leaning tower before catching our flight to Paris (it departed from the Pisa airport)

(it was interesting enough to see in person, but Pisa itself is pretty small so I was glad we only made an afternoon of visiting and didn’t spend a night there…)

Later that night we finally got to our Paris apartment!! It was late and we were exhausted so we just got some wine, bread, and cheese and unpacked and crashed.

(this apt. is tiny, but it definitely makes excellent use of every nook and cranny – there’s a washer/dryer, stove, sink, kitchen table, futon, and all the other essentials)

(teeny bathroom!)

So far I only have a few pictures from our Paris exploring… I hope to be more on top of it as this week progresses and we get out more…

(Connor, his mom, and me as we were walking around yesterday afternoon )

The rain seems to be slowing, so hopefully we will make it out to so some more exploring today…

Final Hike in Cinque Terre & Arriving in Florence

A few more pictures for you to enjoy – of our final day in Cinque Terre and our arrival in Florence, Italy:

{Starting our Tuesday morning off with some pre-hike fuel: homemade raisin biscuit/cake things we bought at the local co-op}

{View of Vernazza from the first part of our ascent}

{Smooth sailing up the first part of the hike – nice, evenly laid rock paths…}

{Definitely giving a false sense of comfort with regards to the rest of the hike…}

{Posing outside a church after the first part of the ascent up the mountain}

{We paused for another biscuit snack break}

{The terrain’s changing a bit and we’re confronted with some heavily-wooded detours}

{Admiring how far up we are – no clue how much further we had…}

{Then came the streams and waterfalls we had to finagle}

{Connor was kind enough to catch me in an oh-so-flattering light as I did my best to scramble up the mountain…}

{We did finally reach the very top – yay! – but that meant about 1 hour of solid downhill hiking. Not nearly as easy as you’d think – my toes were jammed and my legs were quivering when we finally reached the bottom, in Monterosso}

{We rewarded ourselves with a liter of local white wine and an anchovie pizza I’d never tasted anchovies before – I actually didn’t mind them!}

{Capturing my battle wounds with the mountain}

 

{Later we trained back to Manarola and decided to trek around there and enjoy some wine, bread and cheese for the rest of the evening… First we stopped at a playground where Connor couldn’t resist…}

{Posing over some bluffs with our bottle of vino }

{Our spot at the end of the pier-type thing where we drank our wine and watched the sun set}

{Walking to our train platform to eventually head to Florence}

{This is prior to my losing Connor }

{After a LONG day of travel and FINALLY finding our apartment in Florence, we went to an awesome restaurant for dinner! I had an incredible mixed salad – my first solid helping of veggies since we’ve been here :/ – followed by a mushroom pasta in light white sauce… and several pieces of bread }

{Connor had a delicious pasta rustica and then he braved the cow stomach dish that is supposedly a Tuscan specialty – I wasn’t nearly as bold as he was…}

Welp, I’m off to finally get dressed and presentable and go find Connor. He set out for a walk about an hour ago, and I’m supposed to meet up with him for a day of exploring around Florence today

How to Lose Your Husband Via Train in Italy…

Step 1: Spot your train at the platform where it’s supposed to arrive and happily board 20 minutes early (even though this it’s been pretty much un-heard of for any of your trains to arrive that early).

Step 2: Excitedly spot and grab 4 empty seats.

 

Step 3: As you nestle into your excellent find, express your desire for more perfection.

 

Step 4: Express no concern over the fact that your husband must de-board the train to seek out a water fountain (because you boarded said train 20 minutes early, duh).

Step 5: Realize with increasing panic that the train doors are closing and the train is now moving. Without your husband.

 

Morale of the story: A little dehydration is worth it to not lose your travel partner and significant other while traveling abroad.

 

????’s

- Have you ever been separated from your group/travel partner while abroad? Or gotten lost on your own? Fortunately, we boarded the wrong train to begin with (hence why it seemed like it was 20 min. early), so I ended up being able to get off at the next stop and board the next train going back to where Connor was still waiting. All ended fine – I had a phone I could call him with, and we were able to take the next train an hour later to our correct destination. But I was definitely in all-out FREAK OUT mode there fore a few minutes until I was able to contact Connor…

- When traveling, do you get antsy about boarding the train/bus first so you get a good seat? When traveling by plane, I’m always nervous I won’t get a good spot to put my bag or that Connor and I won’t be able to sit together (if we’re flying together, that is). When traveling by bus, I’ve realized that I get quite antsy to board first so that we don’t end up having to stand for a potentially 45+ minute commute with our huge backpacks…

The Vatican, La Spezia Stop-Over, & God-Sent Stone Steps

Hello! We’re into our second week and still truckin’ along We left our Rome apartment on Sunday and took a train to La Spezia where we spent the night before getting up the next day and heading to our place in Manarola, Italy, which is in the coastal Cinque Terre region. So here’s a photo recap of our last few days:

We visited the Vatican Saturday, and it was CROWDED! We stood in a line to stand in a line to stand in a line to stand in a line to stand in a line… Brutal.

 

I was none too pleased. (Neither was the chica behind me, apparently…)

So we resorted to a few fly-by pictures while on our way to the Sistine Chapel…

Halls of tapestries

Here’s a good one of Boyfriend in the Rotunda – sort of like a mini Panthneon inside the Vatican museum.

Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside the Sistine Chapel (though, plenty of people disobeyed, I wasn’t one of them – no way I was about to go against the rules while staring at Michaelangelo’s Judgement Day painting!) Nevertheless, we made it! It was cool, but I have to admit, it didn’t knock my socks off. Both Connor and I said we were glad we endured the lines and stuck with it, but we’ll never do it again, and I’m not sure I’d actually recommend others do it. The lines and crowds were just awful.

Shortly after, we high-tailed it outta Vatican City to begin our city adventures for the evening

Checkin’ out a little alley-way Roman streets (I believe, we’re in search of a bottle of wine to take to a park here)

Made it to Trevi Fountain!

It was cold, drizzly, and crowded, so I kept a healthy distance away from the actual fountain…

Then we ducked into an Irish pub for a bathroom break… And a couple beers and a game of Cribbage

Then we found the Colosseum!

We ended our Sat. night back at the little Italian wine bar we found the other night and had an excellent dinner!

Sunday we got up and made our way to La Spezia, which was our stop-over before heading to Cinque Terre.

Not too shabby

Another terrace!

We took a walk and found their streets lined with orange trees

It was a quick stay in La Spezia. Monday morning I got up and took a couple mile jog and then we checked out and trained it to Manarola.

Ta-da! Our terrace in Manarola

Then we went for paninis for lunch.

 

And a few glasses of wine

It was still only about 3pm, so we decided to try out a bit of hiking. We plain didn’t know what we were getting into. 3 hours later, we finally made it to the next town – Corniglia. It was not an easy feat!

Great views, though!

We conquered the Ascent!

Silly us – we still had about 1.5 hours of downhill hiking to go…

You know it’s tough when you consider it to be a God-send to come upon crudely thrown together stone steps…

But we made it! Our legs were a-shakin’ by the time we finished and took our first steps onto the paved road in Corniglia. We rounded out our evening with a beer-stop in one of the Corniglia piazzas, a train ride back to Manarola (no hiking back for this duo!), and a nice dinner of Italian take-out pesto pizza

That’s all for now, I think we’re gonna head out shortly in search of lunch and maybe attempt a hike between the last 2 cities in Cinque Terre – from Vennazza to Monterosso. Hopefully we fare better today than yesterday…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Healthy Dose of Hysterics…

What trip out of the country is complete without it, right?

Before we get into all that, let’s begin by recapping the last couple days:

 

I’m all kinds of messed up on my days, but I believe this was Tuesday night. We made our way into downtown Rome (read: Connor figured out where we needed to walk from our apartment, which tram we needed to catch, and where a good spot would be for us to check out for the evening… I love him ), walked around a bit, and grabbed a beer at what turned out to be a very popular bar for American tourists/students/expats. That was all well and good (I was really happy to get a hefeweizen draft ) except for the group of study abroad students nearby. At first we wanted to strike up a conversation with them (easy English convo would’ve been welcome since we were brain-dead from travelling and figuring out our apartment and our way into downtown). However, it became quite apparent how spoiled and disinterested they were in actually experiencing the Italian/Roman culture. They were more into their fish bowl and gossiping about their first impressions of all the other study abroad girls in their program. (For those of you who don’t know what a fishbowl is – it’s an hideously sweet alcoholic drink poured into a large fishbowl to be shared by obnoxious pre-21-year-old girls)

{or Kim Kardashian – you get the idea.}

Wow, sorry about that tangent there! Anyway, we downed our beers, hustled outta there, and found our way to the incredibly delicious meal shown above

Yesterday (which was Thursday for me), Connor woke up feeling super well rested and was rarin’ to go – I wasn’t quite on the same page. However, I didn’t balk when he suggested we go check out the Ostia Antica ruins. Lots of confusing tram-to-train-to-train connections, and an hour waiting in line later, we made it here:

It was basically a huge harbor town just outside of Rome and the first city the Romans set out and conquered. Connor was really into it, so I’m glad we went. I found it fairly interesting, but after the first hour or so, all the ruins started to look kinda the same to me. Or, maybe I was just tired… Regardless, 3 hours later, I looked like this:

{“I need a nap or a glass of wine, pronto!”}

Needless to say, it was a long day, especially when you include all the travel involved to get there and back. However, I’m glad we went because 1) Connor really wanted to check it out, and 2) Neither Connor nor I are all that interested in waiting in the awful lines for the Colosseum ruins in downtown Rome, so we were able to get our fill this way

After another early dinner consisting of my new daily diet,

{Except we had bottles of beer in place of the wine…}

we took in some of the Roman sights as we slowly made our way back to the tram to take us home.

It was a LONG hike back, and I wasn’t nearly as happy as I tried to look in these pictures

When we got home, we enjoyed a glass of wine and realized we were crashing fast, so we decided to try and get ourselves out and about again in an attempt to see 10pm roll around. Connor found a wine bar nearby, so we went and tried their house white wine (quite good), a cheesy potato appetizer, and played a round of Cribbage.

{A glass-o’-vino surely will perk me up }

{We truly weren’t hungry, but we felt bad not ordering anything after the waiter went through his whole spiel with us – fortunately, it was very small, but delicious}

And that was the end of last night. As for today, I actually woke up feeling quite rested (I’m fairly certain I’m just a day behind Connor in this whole jet-lag deal). So rested, in fact, I decided I wanted to go for a jog outside. After much coaxing, I convinced Connor to come with me It was a great little jog – I was glad to have Connor there because he pushed me and he’s much better at navigating our way around and back home. So post-run and after a bit of yoga and a shower, I was feeling pretty darn good about myself – walking 20 bagillion miles yesterday, running this morning, AND doing yoga!

Then, mid-happy dance, Connor suggested I walk to the grocery store nearby to get us some food to make some lunch. Sure, why not, I’m awesome!

Except apparently not.

Yeah, so I was walkin’ along, repeating the directions to the grocery store in my head over and over doin’ my thang when I realized said grocery store wasn’t where it was supposed to be. I’m bad at navigating, but I’m darn good at memorizing, so I know I was looking in the right spot (I committed that dot on the map to memory like a baller!). Still, we’re in Italy, and googlemaps isn’t perfect, so I figured I’d walk around the block and see if maybe Google just mis-labeled it… No – it plain didn’t exist. Ok, fine, I continued on to see what else I might find. Aha! A different little grocery store was around the next corner! So I walked in and began checking out their selection… Basically, all was going well until I realized they didn’t accept credit cards and I didn’t  have enough cash, which meant I had to explain myself, apologize, give back the food I’d selected and walk out. I tried again and struck out at a smaller food-stand type market. And then I tried again. At this point, I was all kinds of flustered because no where had all the items I needed, I didn’t have enough cash on me and I was just in a world of embarrassment (from my first strike-out). Finally, I decided to just come back home before I got lost. Then I battled the damn locks on the 3 doors to get into the apartment for 5 minutes. I finally made it inside and Connor greeted me all smiley and asked how it went, and that’s when I lost it.

Fortunately, my husband loves me and emotionally put me back together rather than running for the hills. He talked me back up (I pretty much felt like a failure and an American moron), I dried my splotchy face and set back out to get some damn groceries because I was hungry!

After finally getting it together (thanks to Connor!), we ended up with this nice lil’ spread We got some wine too, but that’ll be enjoyed later…

Well, this was certainly a lengthy post in light of how I didn’t anticipate writing again until next week! Thanks for hangin in there

????’s

- Do you have any meltdown stories from previous travels?

- What kind of sights/tourist attractions do you most enjoy? I’m partial to museums but generally I like to avoid actual tourist sites and just walk around urban areas and neighborhoods…

 

Roman Holiday!

If only I looked as chic as Audrey… No worries, we have plenty of vino to aid in the “beer goggle” effect – so I look darn good

I should preface this post by warning all of you than I’m writing from my phone because Connor has commandeered the laptop. So I’m not terribly confident how well this will turn out… To be fair, he’s being super productive and planning and all that responsible stuff for our upcoming travels, so I’ll let it slide…

Now, since I’m limited technologically, I’m just gonna resort to photo dumping to catch you up on my last couple weeks… Enjoy!

Let’s begin with what I did before I left…

Ate

(To be clear, that’s: ate, drank, played Chinese checkers, ate & drank some more, & got pedicures with my mom)

Now onto the more exciting stuff:

We got upgraded to first class!!

I’m looking rough after some serious need of sleep and lots of running around, but I’m stoked

We stayed just outside of Rome last night and checked out the EUR area – lots of naked men statues and tall church steeples…

We struggled finding a dinner spot (understandably, Europeans don’t eat dinner at 5pm *blue bird special* – but we were dealing with jet lag, so gimme a break…) so we hit up a grocery store and posed with a naked man statue on our walk back to the hotel

That, my friends, is one fine feast – all for under 15 euros!! (That’s TWO bottles of wine, dark leafy lettuce, cherry tomatoes, a solid hunk-o-cheese, baguette, salami, and dark chocolate. I suspect this will be my diet for the next month at least…

Here is a nice shot of what our loot allowed us to create

As for today, we arrived in our Roman flat we are renting for the next several days. IT IS AWESOME!

For the record, that poster in the back corner says “everything you see, I owe to spaghetti” – yes!!!

Oh yea, there’s a terrace!!! AND the lady who owns the place left us this:

So for now I plan to finish my glass of wine, shower (I’ve worn the same outfit for 3 days now), and make our way to downtown Rome

I hope you enjoyed my photo dump and continue to hang in there for my upcoming (albeit sporadic) posts and pictures

????’s

- What is your favorite meal to eat when on vacation?
- Does jet lag bother you at all? I can pretty much sleep whenever but Connor’s pretty sensitive to sleep times and can be easily thrown off…
- If you’ve visited Rome, what do you recommend we check out?

Happy Things Thursday!

Hello! I’d like to do a little variation on my Thankful Thursday posts (see here and here) with a post dedicated to things I’m both thankful for and just generally happy about

1) A lovely lunch with my mom this afternoon – made all the lovelier by some Chipotle action!

{Mmmm! Not my actual picture – but it’s the gist of what I ordered: salad sans dressing with pinto beans, tomato salsa, corn salsa, cheese, & guac on the side}

I can always count on that woman to bond with me over some Chipotle

2) Another shout-out to my momma! For getting me into her yoga classes Tuesday morning and this morning even though I’m not a gym member in Cincy. It’s safe to say that my strength training days have been cozily tucked away for the foreseeable future, so it was nice to at least get some quality yoga in this week (hey, chaturanga pushups are no joke!)

{That’s me…}

{A girl can dream, sheesh…}

3) Also, thanks to Mom gettin’ my butt through the gym door Tuesday morning and this morning, I rounded out my yoga classes with some quality cardio both days – a 35 minute treadmill jog followed by 25 minutes of ellipticizing Tuesday and 65 minutes on the elliptical today

4) A big ol’ thanks to my in-laws for housing all our crap while we traipse across another continent (and are essentially homeless)

{It’s not terribly un-like this…}

Not only have they allowed us to essentially move into their basement/Connor’s old bedroom, but they’ve also been letting me eat and sleep as much as I want!

{Mostly, there’s been divine home-cookin’ and ice cream consumed, but I of course forgot to snap a picture of that. So instead I give you a picture of the best-tasting grilled cheese – prepared Tuesday for lunch along with generous portions of pretzels and hummus and veggies }

{Any good meal requires a good post-meal nap…. Dozing outside in the sun while listening to some Pandora? Yes, please!}

5) Speaking of which… I’m super happy for how nice and warm the weather has been the past few days! It’s been great to get outside And it’s been helpful in determining what to pack for our trip – turns out I can survive 70 degrees without a coat; I simply forgot that it’s possible to actually feel comfortable outside not fully bundled…

{Fine, fine, I’ll leave the parka behind…}

6) I’m really grateful to have had this week and to have this upcoming weekend to catch up and visit with family and friends before we take off

That should do it for now…

????’s

- What are you grateful for or happy about right now?

- In case I don’t touch base with you all tomorrow – what are your weekend plans? 

So long, Harrisburg!

As expected, I didn’t get around to posting yesterday. In fact, we didn’t finish our drive from Harrisburg to Cincinnati until 10pm! Yesterday was all-around uneventful, LONG, and I’m still exhausted from it (not that I did any driving or anything – oh no, Connor stepped up and handled the entire 8 hours… Hey, I offered )

Fortunately, we were able to spend this past weekend in Harrisburg and enjoy everything one last time – it was really very nice Friday was very low-key – dinner and beverages at Midtown Tavern, and we chatted up a couple of well-traveled guys about our upcoming trip

Thanking my lucky stars that Midtown Tavern FINALLY got Sam Adams Summer Ale in before I left

Saturday we lolly-gagged around the house until a little hit after noon and then set out for a very leisurely walk around downtown Harrisburg. We were blown away by how beautiful and in-bloom everything was!

We strolled around the capitol admiring all the foliage…

I made Connor pose too

We moved on a little further down the way and posed with some Cherry Blossoms

They were much nicer than what we found in D.C. the previous weekend…

We took our sweet time and probably covered about 4 miles. It was just a blissful afternoon

On Sunday morning I woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed! And it was another gorgeous day, so Connor very easily convinced me to go to Colonel Denning State Park to hike the Flat Rock Trail. I was a little nervous because it was a 5 mile trail marked “difficult” and noted for it’s particularly rocky and rugged ascent…

You can’t really get a feel for how steep it got, but I was winded within the first 1/2 mile

I just kept my eye on the prize and trucked along behind Connor…

I’m actually quite proud of us because before we knew it, we were at the top!

View of Cumberland Valley from Flat Rock

Another view… and me hammin’ it up

One more of me – for good measure

It was a great hike – just about perfect for Connor and me. We both were fulling capable of powering up and down the trail, but we were quite happy and ready to see the end of the trail come

Afterwards we drove home and decided to spend another afternoon enjoying the outdoors.

THIS time I brought Sam Adams along for company

After enjoying some more urban foliage around Harrisburg, we got some dinner…

… and went home to crawl into bed – a solid day of packing and driving awaited us on Monday…

 

????’s

- Did you get outside this weekend?

- Do you prefer to drive or be driven?