I can’t believe it’s already Monday!
It’s been a while since I blogged, my excuse: life got busy. It’s also been a while since we had roasted veggies, my excuse: none. Tonight, I got to do both as we fired up the oven and indulged in one of my favorite Fall meals, Sausage and Roasted Veggies on Millet.
Yum!
This lovely dinner is a fitting, and warming, welcome back from our excursion this past weekend in Bear Country (aka Shenandoah National Park) with my parents.
And boy did we see some wildlife, including a bear!
And that bear does not include Jay (yes, he finally got his panda hat). We were shocked how much wildlife we saw this weekend. There were animals everywhere!!! It must be the cooler weather. We saw the bear right as we pulled onto Skyline Drive. He was quite a sight!
Plus, we saw deer along the road, at the campsite, even walking mere feet away. Above is a picture of a deer walking in front of our campsite Sunday morning! Too crazy! We are used to seeing wildlife in Shenandoah, but not to the magnitude of what we got this weekend.
But let’s flash back to Saturday when we went hiking on the Appalachian Trail.
Ever since this summer when Jay watched a documentary on the trail and coincidently my mom was hiking the 100 mile wilderness, Jay has wanted to hike the AT. While I know he would love to do a through hike, that is a little unreasonable with our other hopes and dreams. Instead, I promised him that we would start working on the trail and eventually complete the entire thing.
My mom is a hiking (and an Appalachian Trail) enthusiast, so she had no problem showing her future son-in-law the trail.
It was pretty wild on the trail this weekend with remnants of last weekends snow storm. As common as it was to see deer grazing along the road, it was also very common to see snow here and there.
It was definitely cold enough for the snow to hang around. While both nights in the tent were cold, we were very surprised to see ice form on both our tent and car Saturday evening. I know my parents were thankful to be out of the harsh environment, as they gloated to us the next morning how warm their room was back at the lodge.
Thankfully we had the proper equipment and were warm. Honestly, I am still trying to figure out how to prevent the cold air from leaking into my sleeping bag every time I rolled over.
All in all we had a great time this weekend with my parents. I think next time, we will definitely take them up on getting a room in the lodge if we go that late in the season. I just hope the rooms are as warm as their breakfast is delicious, not that I doubt they wouldn’t be!
