An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

Yesterday I felt the need to get outdoors for a bit. I headed to Great Falls. Parked at the Difficult Run parking lot, hiked around into Great Falls Park, down to the river, then up the Ridge Trail to the Old Carriage Road. Hiked up the Old Carriage Road a ways, then turn around and used that as a shortcut back to the parking lot. A nice loop. Most of the trees are bare, but this one holdout over the gorge was still wearing its fall colors. The gray, late fall day seemed almost black and white. This picture of leaves glistening along the trail is not black and white - the scene is just almost devoid of color.

The low part of the trip came Friday morning. Bleary-eyed, I left my room, went down to breakfast, drank about twice as much coffee as usual (which is saying something) and then went to return to my room only to realize that I had no idea what my room number was. I actually had to go to the front desk and ask them to tell me my room number. I had gotten in late the previous night after a delayed flight back out of Atlanta, and had gotten to bed around 3 AM. The previous night I hadn't slept well because of job stress, and the day before that had been one of those 12+ hour days I tend to have when I travel. And here I was at the crack of, well, maybe it was 7 AM or so trying to function. Worse yet, I had driven from Richmond (where I had pre-positioned my car and kayak gear before flying to Mississippi) to Williamsburg to be near the kayak group, and they had chosen to paddle closer back towards Richmond to accommodate me since they assumed I was staying in Richmond. So, grabbing ye...