The holiday weekend

This coming weekend will mark our one-year anniversary in our house here in Southern Maryland and, with the exception of a handful of trips to the metropolitan areas near us - D.C., Baltimore, Annapolis - we have done very little of the exploring we imagined we'd do when we decided to make the move out here.

So we kicked ourselves in the pants this long weekend and got moving.  Saturday morning, we loaded up the car and steered the car westward, towards Virginia, deciding once we were on the road our ultimate destination - Shenandoah National Park in northwestern Virginia, "where the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah River meet".  From Freehold Drive, to Fredricksburg, to Front Royal, about 2/3 the way down Shenandoah's Skyline Drive, out to Charlottesville, and home again.

We ate - Italian, Japanese, Afghan/Mediterranean, plain ol' American, and complimentary hotel breakfast buffets.

We swam - in chilly outdoor hotel swimming pools with kids, families and 40-year-old Middle Eastern men who spoke almost no English but generously shared their pool toys.

We walked historic downtown streets and visited historic landmarks.

We hiked wooded paths past crumbling rock walls and what once was - inconceivably - cleared farmland.

We drove 35 mph with the windows down along Skyline Drive, enjoying the cool breeze and warm sun that kept us the perfect temperature.

We stopped often and stared out into the distance - valleys, trails, hollows, the grand Appalachian mountains in the distance.

We saw five bears.

We met up with friends for lunch in Charlottesville, and came upon a Memorial Day service just as the 21-gun salute was fired and Taps began playing.

(And I finally forgot to worry for a bit.  At least until, you know, we found several ticks crawling on Gideon during our hike, which necessitated a family strip-down in the handicap-accessible restroom back at the parking lot.  Lyme disease is a bitch, y'all - not something to mess around with.  But that's another story.)

It was a good weekend.

Hope you had a good one, too.