Our Floyd trip has finally come and went and it was wonderful! Chase and I had been trying to get back to Blacksburg, Virginia Tech, and all our wonderful friends that live there for awhile now, and luckily we are LivingSocial addicts so we found a great deal allowing a mid-winter trip! A little over a year ago Chase and I visited Floyd, Va for a day trip and fell in love (we could live there, but since that trip Chase has edited his "Must-Have List" for places we can live and added Whole Foods, or as he refers to it "HO FO"). Floyd is a great little hippie/country town, just outside of Roanoke and Blacksburg. There are great little shops full of local art, organic food stores, and virtually anything and everything you could want for a relaxing trip. During our trip we stumbled upon a new hotel, holding a spring music show/market. Hotel Floyd is a local, eco-friendly hotel, with themed rooms. We had the "Blue Ridge Parkway" room (how perfect is that?) Every room also offers king-sized beds (I cannot explain how wonderful this is, since we are used to our double at home) and a tub (we have a stand-up shower with a wild temperature gauge). To say the least we LOVE Hotel Floyd and will go back any time we have the chance! I almost forgot to include how we had the opportunity in the first place: Living Social. We check this site everyday and try to find good deals on fun getaways. We got the hotel for two nights for $119.00 and that including a tour and two wine tastings at Chateau Morrisette.
Now that I've gushed over my love for all things organic-granola-crunchy-hippie-lovey-dovey-eco-friendly, I can now share more about our trip. We spent Friday afternoon in-route to Floyd, stopping in Blacksburg to enjoy some wings at our favorite smoked-wings brewery, Bull & Bones. The wings were fantastic and overall a great little break from my trek (I drove, making it my trek and Chase's leisure roll). After a brief run-though of Blue Ridge Mountain Sports and wanting to indulge and buy patagonia fleece jackets and vibram five finger shoes, we hopped back in the stratus and headed off to hippie land. We had planned on enjoying the Floyd Country Store and seeing an old favorite band, the Black Twig Pickers. We were pleasantly surprised to see so many people out and about on a warm winter night.
Saturday was an adventure in itself: breakfast, wine tasting at Chateau Morrisette, and Shenandoah documentary at the Lyric Theatre, all before 3 o'clock. Being self-proclaimed Cellar Junkies we met our friends for a delicious dinner and then went out on the town for drinks, including $6 pitchers of fat tire at Sycamore Deli (yes, that is a good deal). After seeing all our great friends, walking up Main Street for a short visit with strangers, crushing chips all over some girls floor, and mooching alcohol we hit the pavement to head to the car. Of course, Andrew had more plans...pizza plans. Apparently, Andrew and all of his frat brothers go frequent this new pizza shop, a place with pizza the size of your torso...seriously big. But, everyone knows what a junk food-cheese-junkie Andrew is so I kindly obliged and went with him willingly. Oh how I love huge crowds of shithead drunk people, most of which pay for their friends, oops, I mean are in sororities and fraternities. To be honest, I cannot cope. I almost lost my shit in the pizza place, small quarters, dumb people, and it was not handling it the way that I want to look back on. Actually, i should apologize to Chase and Andrew (Andrew stole a 7-Up...to give me and make me feel better, I know it's sad). I definitely need to improve my coping skills and after such a blessed and wonderful weekend.
I guess the thing that sticks with me the most after such a great weekend is how lucky i am to have such wonderful friends, willing to visit with me and spend time with me. So here's a big shout out to everyone who saw us this weekend!
P.S. Chase has commented that he wishes to be better represented in my blog, basically wanting me to write about how wonderful he is all the time. Yes, it is true Chase is great, always helpful, keeps me in check about being an occasional psycho, but in all fairness i believe i bring the best out in him as well. HAH!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Old Rag
A change of plans can be exciting, but it can also be challenging. I don't know why but I am one of those people that doesn't take it well. Maybe I get too invested in what I'm gonna do. I mentally prepare myself.
This past weekend, a change of plans snowballed into something much more. With no more visitors coming to see us, we "decided" to go hiking (not that I don't love hiking, seeing beautiful vistas, and feeling o-so-healthy...I also loathe hiking and all that comes with that other significant group of feelings). I loathe the distance, I loathe the looming aches and pains, and I loathe the comparison of my heavy breathing to Chase's as a canters up the mountains.However, this weekend has allowed me to view my abilities, my breakdowns, and short-comings in a whole new light.
In Route:
Old Rag. First off, why the hell is Shenandoah National Park's most popular hiking spot called "Old Rag". It sounds dirty. I don't like it and based on the grandeur and beautiful vistas, it could have been named better. Clearly, whomever named it never made it to the top. A likely outcome, based on what the trail looks like today (and that's with thousands of feet trampling it throughout the years) and what i imagine it to have looked like at its conception. In route, I realized that the hike was not the 4 mile hike that I had thought, rather it was 8.8 miles (to be it lightly, I was upset). Why were we driving to hike 8.8 miles at noon on Saturday? Did I mention we stopped to get cake? So there we are, high on sugar, aching bellies, dealing with my pissy nature, on our way to hike 8.8 miles.
Hiking:
I'd like to start this section about how "pumped" we both were to be hiking and how much I love getting some fresh air. I wasn't. I was a little upset, I think through the whimpering (bitching), Chase caught my subtle hint that I was not a happy camper. I'd also like to say that this lasted on mere minutes and then we were off to enjoy our hike. It didn't. It lasted...awhile. My favorite lines: "8.8 miles....WTF!!!", "Fu**ing 1 o'clock and were beginning a hike", and my personal favorite of the first portion of our hike, "We're gonna being hiking in the dark!!!" ( We packed headlamps, as if I had forgotten about this at some point).
The good news is that we made it through my crybaby antics, and luckily Chase decided he would hold out on killing me until another hike. Chase used a tactic that is frowned upon, but necessary: lying. He told me, as I walked away, up the trail, that the hike was only 5 miles. My mood immediately changed and I was feeling a skip in my step. We might not be hiking in the dark...with our headlamps.
Changing Times:
Over the years, I have mentioned, rather questioned my friends about an interesting occurrence in my life. Even at the most enjoyable moments and fun activities that I am fortunate to experience frequently, I choose to be in a foul mood. At times, it is brought on by some other incident, and yet sometimes I realize that I am being a total bitch for no reason, I just can't snap out of it. I listen to what I'm saying, how I'm saying it, and thinking "who is this bitch?". Luckily, on this particular day, I successfully snapped out of it.
The hike started to become fun. The scenery was beautiful and I was really enjoying myself. We had the opportunity to just chat, talk about stuff that mattered, mostly stuff that didn't matter at all, and generally enjoy each others company. The trail was changing and the rock scramble began. Now while some of you, who are not as "outdoorsy" as me, may not understand this rock scramble concept, allow me to explain. Rock scrambles are big-ass rocks, you must climb over, using all the techniques you learned from hours of watching Bear Grylls (three points of contact, AT ALL TIMES). While challenging at times, the rock scramble was so much fun and really rewarding. The vistas were getting better and better (as the sun got lower and lower).
Dusk:
Reaching the top, and realizing that we actually reached the top (despite assuming I already had, roughly 5 times already) was so rewarding. We spent approximately 4 minutes enjoying this beautiful vista, before we started our trek down the mountain, but not before we were met with some ultra-mountain-runner freaks, oh I mean athletes. A couple ran up on us, and passed us as they sprinted down the mountain. I started thinking about how great it would be to be in that great of shape to even be able to think about doing that, maybe one day...
The trek down the mountain was, dare I say, enjoyable. While I felt a significant amount of pressure to quickly get down to a fire road before it was completely dark, I did enjoy knowing that we were past the point of no return and when we were officially done, sitting in the car, we would have completed a hike that I had made impossible in my own naive mind. We reached the fire road just about the time old man moon peaked his head. Luckily, we had HEADLAMPS! Which, despite my earlier thoughts, provide light, allowing hikes to occur at night. The road back was easy enough and we reached the car after about 2.5 miles of wishing we were done and eating dinner. Chase's thoughts of food led us to a conversation about dinner locations for the last 4 miles and was reminiscent of the snickers commercials of men acting like divas when they're hungry.
Mellow:
We were now destroying our healthy-eating commitment for the second time in one day (cake eating fiasco, from earlier) at Mellow Mushroom pizza. We unabashedly dove into a pizza covered in toppings and my-oh-my did it hit the spot! We had finished an 8.8 mile hike. We deserved it.
This past weekend, a change of plans snowballed into something much more. With no more visitors coming to see us, we "decided" to go hiking (not that I don't love hiking, seeing beautiful vistas, and feeling o-so-healthy...I also loathe hiking and all that comes with that other significant group of feelings). I loathe the distance, I loathe the looming aches and pains, and I loathe the comparison of my heavy breathing to Chase's as a canters up the mountains.However, this weekend has allowed me to view my abilities, my breakdowns, and short-comings in a whole new light.
In Route:
Old Rag. First off, why the hell is Shenandoah National Park's most popular hiking spot called "Old Rag". It sounds dirty. I don't like it and based on the grandeur and beautiful vistas, it could have been named better. Clearly, whomever named it never made it to the top. A likely outcome, based on what the trail looks like today (and that's with thousands of feet trampling it throughout the years) and what i imagine it to have looked like at its conception. In route, I realized that the hike was not the 4 mile hike that I had thought, rather it was 8.8 miles (to be it lightly, I was upset). Why were we driving to hike 8.8 miles at noon on Saturday? Did I mention we stopped to get cake? So there we are, high on sugar, aching bellies, dealing with my pissy nature, on our way to hike 8.8 miles.
Hiking:
I'd like to start this section about how "pumped" we both were to be hiking and how much I love getting some fresh air. I wasn't. I was a little upset, I think through the whimpering (bitching), Chase caught my subtle hint that I was not a happy camper. I'd also like to say that this lasted on mere minutes and then we were off to enjoy our hike. It didn't. It lasted...awhile. My favorite lines: "8.8 miles....WTF!!!", "Fu**ing 1 o'clock and were beginning a hike", and my personal favorite of the first portion of our hike, "We're gonna being hiking in the dark!!!" ( We packed headlamps, as if I had forgotten about this at some point).
The good news is that we made it through my crybaby antics, and luckily Chase decided he would hold out on killing me until another hike. Chase used a tactic that is frowned upon, but necessary: lying. He told me, as I walked away, up the trail, that the hike was only 5 miles. My mood immediately changed and I was feeling a skip in my step. We might not be hiking in the dark...with our headlamps.
Changing Times:
Over the years, I have mentioned, rather questioned my friends about an interesting occurrence in my life. Even at the most enjoyable moments and fun activities that I am fortunate to experience frequently, I choose to be in a foul mood. At times, it is brought on by some other incident, and yet sometimes I realize that I am being a total bitch for no reason, I just can't snap out of it. I listen to what I'm saying, how I'm saying it, and thinking "who is this bitch?". Luckily, on this particular day, I successfully snapped out of it.
The hike started to become fun. The scenery was beautiful and I was really enjoying myself. We had the opportunity to just chat, talk about stuff that mattered, mostly stuff that didn't matter at all, and generally enjoy each others company. The trail was changing and the rock scramble began. Now while some of you, who are not as "outdoorsy" as me, may not understand this rock scramble concept, allow me to explain. Rock scrambles are big-ass rocks, you must climb over, using all the techniques you learned from hours of watching Bear Grylls (three points of contact, AT ALL TIMES). While challenging at times, the rock scramble was so much fun and really rewarding. The vistas were getting better and better (as the sun got lower and lower).
Dusk:
Reaching the top, and realizing that we actually reached the top (despite assuming I already had, roughly 5 times already) was so rewarding. We spent approximately 4 minutes enjoying this beautiful vista, before we started our trek down the mountain, but not before we were met with some ultra-mountain-runner freaks, oh I mean athletes. A couple ran up on us, and passed us as they sprinted down the mountain. I started thinking about how great it would be to be in that great of shape to even be able to think about doing that, maybe one day...
The trek down the mountain was, dare I say, enjoyable. While I felt a significant amount of pressure to quickly get down to a fire road before it was completely dark, I did enjoy knowing that we were past the point of no return and when we were officially done, sitting in the car, we would have completed a hike that I had made impossible in my own naive mind. We reached the fire road just about the time old man moon peaked his head. Luckily, we had HEADLAMPS! Which, despite my earlier thoughts, provide light, allowing hikes to occur at night. The road back was easy enough and we reached the car after about 2.5 miles of wishing we were done and eating dinner. Chase's thoughts of food led us to a conversation about dinner locations for the last 4 miles and was reminiscent of the snickers commercials of men acting like divas when they're hungry.
Mellow:
We were now destroying our healthy-eating commitment for the second time in one day (cake eating fiasco, from earlier) at Mellow Mushroom pizza. We unabashedly dove into a pizza covered in toppings and my-oh-my did it hit the spot! We had finished an 8.8 mile hike. We deserved it.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Evolution
niche: noun \ˈnich also ˈnēsh or ˈnish\: a place, status, or activity for which a person is best fitted.
I graduated grad school in August 2011, I moved out of my beloved college town after five rewarding years, and I settled into a new home in Charlottesville, Virginia. I had anticipated this transition as an easy one and thought throughout college that I had made all the "right" choices. I graduated with my B.S. in four years (despite taking the long road through a few classes, i.e. all my math classes), I traveled all around the country to do internships (experiences that I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to do), and I stayed at college to complete my M.S.Ed. Not only was I involved in a lot of aspects of college, I was confident that only bigger, brighter, better things awaited me in the "real world".
"evolving niche" is not a journey, a goal, or even necessarily attainable. It's progressive. It's about committing to life-long learning, adapting, and growing as an individual.
I graduated grad school in August 2011, I moved out of my beloved college town after five rewarding years, and I settled into a new home in Charlottesville, Virginia. I had anticipated this transition as an easy one and thought throughout college that I had made all the "right" choices. I graduated with my B.S. in four years (despite taking the long road through a few classes, i.e. all my math classes), I traveled all around the country to do internships (experiences that I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to do), and I stayed at college to complete my M.S.Ed. Not only was I involved in a lot of aspects of college, I was confident that only bigger, brighter, better things awaited me in the "real world".
"evolving niche" is not a journey, a goal, or even necessarily attainable. It's progressive. It's about committing to life-long learning, adapting, and growing as an individual.
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