Virginia and North Carolina
On the weekend after my Washington DC trip, I went walking with my friend in Virginia. I didn’t have proper hiking boots or really, decent walking shoes, so we kept to the very easy/ moderate trails.
On Saturday we went to Great Falls National Park and Riverbend County Park. Both of these have trails along the Potomac River. Along the Great Falls trails, the river is wild with big drops and large rocks. Along the Riverbend park trail the river is wide and flat and meandering. There seems to be a dam across the river where the two parks meet and link up. Do you see the crazy kayaker in the second picture? The third picture is a blow up of the second picture. Crazy person!
Along the walking trails had really cooperative wildlife.
On the Sunday we went to Shenandoah National Park.
We ate our lunch looking out over the valley, and as were sitting there, another pair of hikers came by, the boy looked at my socks and exclaimed that I was wearing snoopy socks, which I was, but I have no idea how he recognized them, as they were rolled down. It then turned out that both he and the girl he was hiking with also had snoopy sock on. Such a weird coincidence.
On my last night with my friend, we walked around Leesburg, where she lives.
The next day I rented a car (which turned out to be a red pick up truck) and drove to North Carolina for the conference. We stayed in residences, across from which was the schools arboretum. There are three direct paths across the arboretum, the arbor, with 17 different types of vines growing on it, the president path and the seniors path (the photos are in order below). Then there are a number of criss crossing paths. It was really nice to walk back and forth to town and the conference meeting halls through the arboretum.
The school was much bigger than I imagined, and also housed a planetarium.
The conference banquet was held in the North Carolina Botanical Gardens. There was a huge rainstorm as we departed, and so at first it didn’t look like we would be able to explore the gardens, but after dinner, the weather cleared and became misty. I met someone else who wanted to see the garden and apparently we disappeared for a significant period of time (one of my work colleagues was a bit concerned that I had wondered into some woods)
This is when I learned that Venus flytraps are endemic to North Carolina and their population is under threat in the wild. The gardens had a really nice collection of carnivorous plants including venus flytraps, pitcher plants and sundews.
For the field trip excursion, I opted to go to the Duke gardens, which are connected to Duke University and fairly extensive. They reminded me of Buchard Gardens in Victoria but along with a formal garden section, there was also a native area and an Asian garden. The Asian garden was included because the plants in the two regions are closely related.
After this nice outing it was time to pack up and fly home. Our flight had a stop-over in Philadelphia and we expected to have to change gates at the time, but surprisingly the plane that left from North Carolina was the same plane that flew from Philadelphia to Halifax. We did have to get off and we explored the airport a little bit, but we had no worries that our checked bags wouldn’t make the connection.
All in all it was a really pleasant trip.
On Saturday we went to Great Falls National Park and Riverbend County Park. Both of these have trails along the Potomac River. Along the Great Falls trails, the river is wild with big drops and large rocks. Along the Riverbend park trail the river is wide and flat and meandering. There seems to be a dam across the river where the two parks meet and link up. Do you see the crazy kayaker in the second picture? The third picture is a blow up of the second picture. Crazy person!
Along the walking trails had really cooperative wildlife.
On the Sunday we went to Shenandoah National Park.
We ate our lunch looking out over the valley, and as were sitting there, another pair of hikers came by, the boy looked at my socks and exclaimed that I was wearing snoopy socks, which I was, but I have no idea how he recognized them, as they were rolled down. It then turned out that both he and the girl he was hiking with also had snoopy sock on. Such a weird coincidence.
On my last night with my friend, we walked around Leesburg, where she lives.
The next day I rented a car (which turned out to be a red pick up truck) and drove to North Carolina for the conference. We stayed in residences, across from which was the schools arboretum. There are three direct paths across the arboretum, the arbor, with 17 different types of vines growing on it, the president path and the seniors path (the photos are in order below). Then there are a number of criss crossing paths. It was really nice to walk back and forth to town and the conference meeting halls through the arboretum.
The school was much bigger than I imagined, and also housed a planetarium.
The conference banquet was held in the North Carolina Botanical Gardens. There was a huge rainstorm as we departed, and so at first it didn’t look like we would be able to explore the gardens, but after dinner, the weather cleared and became misty. I met someone else who wanted to see the garden and apparently we disappeared for a significant period of time (one of my work colleagues was a bit concerned that I had wondered into some woods)
This is when I learned that Venus flytraps are endemic to North Carolina and their population is under threat in the wild. The gardens had a really nice collection of carnivorous plants including venus flytraps, pitcher plants and sundews.
For the field trip excursion, I opted to go to the Duke gardens, which are connected to Duke University and fairly extensive. They reminded me of Buchard Gardens in Victoria but along with a formal garden section, there was also a native area and an Asian garden. The Asian garden was included because the plants in the two regions are closely related.
After this nice outing it was time to pack up and fly home. Our flight had a stop-over in Philadelphia and we expected to have to change gates at the time, but surprisingly the plane that left from North Carolina was the same plane that flew from Philadelphia to Halifax. We did have to get off and we explored the airport a little bit, but we had no worries that our checked bags wouldn’t make the connection.
All in all it was a really pleasant trip.