Getting Lost in the Woods... Literally

Maryland Patapsco Valley State Park. It isn't a 14er, a complicated set of canyons in the dessert or any of the other places I have hiked; and yet for some reason it is the first place I have ever gotten lost as a hiker. 

Let me back up. Maryland State Park trails aren't as well managed as Colorado trails, less funding and usage is my guess. So the trails get a little overgrown and they don't have as many (if any) trail maps or directions on how to get to the trails. Which brings me to the story of today. The dogs and I woke up early and decided to try out a new trail. I read from the guide book I bought to start on trail A and then take trail B. Pretty simple. So after driving around in two circles in the park's parking lots I found the trailhead. Or what I thought was the correct trailhead. Turns out it wasn't the trailhead. Nor where the next 5 trailhead intersections I found along the trail. At hour one and a half of our one hour hike the dogs and I came upon a small river. We had to cross it and I slipped right off a rock and into the water. It was actually funny. I kind of wish someone was there so they could have told me exactly what happened and laugh with me. Anyways after 2 hours and 45 minutes we made it back to the car. I saw a bunch of beautiful scenery... all of which I don't know if I could find again so enjoy the pictures below. :0) 

  

Real Beaches of Deleware

A week ago we went to the Chesapeake Bay, it was beautiful... but it was a bay, not an ocean. Thus, the whole pack piled in the trusty Forester this morning in search of the "real" ocean beaches of Delaware. First you have to go over the Bay Bridge, which spans over the Chesapeake. It is my first true suspension bridge, I know it doesn't rival the ones in California, but it takes my breath away. It also freaks Bella out, so much so that she starts to shake, luckily it is only a couple of minutes long.

Bella's ready for the adventure!

Bay Bridge

This is when Bella starts to shake

 

View of the Bay from the Bridge

We crossed into Delaware, add a new state to the Conroy state list please, and were pleasantly suprised with beautiful farm land.

I spy a farm!! Do you?

Upon reach the ocean, thank you Garmin (and Mom and Dad), we were blessed with cloudy skies and lots of winds. Blessed? Yes, the beaches were empty and the dogs had a blast running off leash after tennis balls and each other. I also saw my first true waves, waves you could go surfing on. They were probably 4 ft waves, just big enough to try surfing on... once I learn to swim :0) It was truly a beautiful day in the Mid-Atlantic.

Wyatt sporting a sand beard; by the end of the day he was cover in sand.

First MD Hike

Today the dogs and I went for our first hike in Maryland. There is a State Park about 10 minutes from our apartments. The dogs and I hiked for about 3 hours on all of the trails, it was wonderful. We saw three deer, four squirrels and lot of beautiful scenery. The dogs pretty much walked the entire time with their noses to the ground. They are finally completely and utterly happily exhausted. Here are some of my favorite photos from the hike.

Finally got them to stop long enough for a picture. 

I am calling this the fire tree, the stumps looks like flames to me.

This area reminded me of the secret garden.

Our New Home

When Jeremy first said he had an interview in Baltmore, MD I had to think about where it was located. Aside from our elementary geography classes we never even thought of the area. We knew it existed, but that is about it. At first I thought it was going to be similar to Boston and the East Coast, I was wrong. About the only similarity I can see is that it is green. There is a lot of vegetation here, which I love, it is much thicker then up north. There are vines, trees, grass and more. With that much beautiful plant life you also get bugs and LOTS of humidity. The humidity really has been a shock, I sweat standing still; our apartment has central air though so it hasn't really been that big of a problem. There is also a lot more diversity out here, we think it is wonderful if anything it is nice to see some more colorful home decorations at walmart. It was hard at first, I wouldn't say we are a complete minority but we definitely aren't the majority. It was the first time I have ever felt that way at first it scared me... now I kind of like it. I feel like I get to learn more about people this way.

Our new apartment is definitely smaller than our Denver apartment, but it is cozy and we have definitely made it feel more like home. In some ways I like it better than our old apartment because we utilized our space better and we have a big grassy area right out side of our patio for the dogs. We live about 10 mins from a State Park with trails and 15 mins from a nice dog park for the dogs. We are about 20 mins from Jeremy's work and the trains into Baltimore and Washington DC.So far it seems to be working out very nicely.

The dogs are still adjusting. Bella and Wyatt have to bark at every noise they hear, but they are starting to learn what is a normal noise and what isn't. Wyatt felt comfortable enough to bury a bone last night, so I think he has figured out we are staying for a while. Bella loves all of the smells. She goes crazy trying to smell everything when we go outside. She also loves to watch the squirrels out the patio door... just bidding her time to go chase them.

Driving Cross Country... again

After 29+ hours of driving we made it into Maryland! It was a much drive this time. The trailer we got to pull the Jeep had a lot of play in it. Which made it hard to keep it in the lane or do any backing up. The first day we made it all the way to Cedar Rapids (Iowa). Here I learned the hard way that 20 miles off the main interstate after a 12 hour day is a torturous, long way; we did see the Quaker Oats plant so it was kind of worth it. We had a lot of technical issues on the first day. The harnesses on the Jeep wouldn't stay on and the check engine came on (never did turn off). We made it work though.

 The next day we made it all the way into Monaca, PA (north of Pittsburg). This day was a big 16 ft truck with trailer driving nightmare. First, I was transitioning back to East Coast driving, which is by far more aggressive than Colorado driving. Second, we had the play in the trailer so it was hard to keep everything in our lane. Third, the roads don't exactly always make sense here. Mapquest and Brittany Warden got us through though. The big suprise for this day was how hilly... almost mountaining around Monaca was. It was my personal favorite part of the trip. It also made me feel thankful we didn't have to go over any major passes. 

The final day we traveled to our new home in Ellicott City, MD. We traveled through Pittsburgh in the early hours in the dark. It seemed liked a beautiful city. One of the trip's highlights was going in to a tunnel where it still looked rural then coming out and seeing the lighted Pittsburgh skyline and the river by it. I think it took all of our breaths away. 

The dogs did really well considering all of the stress. We did have to sedate Bella every night, but it was expected and we were prepared for it. Wyatt slept pretty much the entire way while Bella tried to figure out where we were going and how to get home.

I would like to say a special thank you to Brittany and Jeremy for keeping me sane and calm. It was a hard trip but they made it fun. 

Loading Day

Everything is packed and ready to go. I pick up the Budget truck this morning at 9. Comcast will be disabled at 9, so it is going to be "radio" silence until next Monday. We are going to pack the truck a day early due to Jeremy's work schedule and to make cleaning the apartment easier. Break out the fine plastic! We are camping in the apartment again :0) The dogs seem to be taking everything fairly well, hopefully they won't freak out when the truck gets loaded.

Forts

We have quite the little fortress of boxes, both filled and unfilled, in our spare bedroom/office right now. Last night it made me want to start arranging them into a mighty box fort. I was mentally rearranging them, when I remembered all of the other work that I had to do. We still have a couple of weeks, perhaps there will still be time to create a box fort.

We sure did build some neat forts in the day: Hay Forts, Weed Forts, Bed Forts, Couch Forts, Box Forts, Blanket Forts and more. As kids if we could move it, it became a fort. My favorite forts were the Hay Forts, especially the one on the sledding hill. We had so many rooms and sections in that haystack, it was its own little kingdom. Of course we pretty much ruined all of the hay... but it was worth it to us. To anyone else it was a stack of hay, but to me it was one of our many magical playgrounds.