November in Virginia = awesome.

Yesterday Rob and I went for an autumnal saunter at the C&O Canal NHP, on the Maryland side of the Potomac. It was in the mid-60s, sunny and golden! There was quite a line to get into the park as DC-ites squeezed the most out of the glorious weather. I didn't take any pictures of the throngs since we opted for wooded paths -- I still can't figure out why more people don't venture into the woods and stay on the towpath instead. The trails are well-marked for the most part, there are no bears, and the spongy dirt is much kinder on the knees. Come on in, everyone!

Then we came home and started putting together our 9-foot Christmas tree. We have tall ceilings that come with living on the 4th floor, so we figured why not take advantage of them? For those of you who think it indecent to deck a tree before the carving of the sacrificial turkey (or lentil loaf, in our case), we don't have nearly enough lights to have it decorated too much before Thanksgiving. And it gets dark so darn early here since we're so far east in the time zone, so it's soothing to have the lights on when we get home from work.

Good job Rob!

Nanny Goat Trail

After being cooped up indoors for what felt like weeks, I finally got out for an afternoon this weekend to hike section B of the Billy Goat Trail. I wanted to do something more strenuous but we got kind of a late start, it still gets dark kind of early, and I wanted to have time to take some pictures and enjoy the scenery along the way.

We haven't had much snow or other precipitation to speak of since the Big Snow, but there was a lot of ice left behind. We saw a lot of ice ledges was still frozen onto rocks where the water level used to be a couple of weeks ago, but it has been dry and now the water level has fallen. Didn't see many 4-legged critters other than dogs, but we heard lots of chickadees and woodpeckers. Today was the first warm afternoon in a while and the air smelled like spring.




Even though the rocky parts remind me of the U.P., this place still looks like an alien landscape to me sometimes. I walk along the trail and can't stop saying "Wow..."

An eye patch, a skink, and Ira Glass go to the Ren Fair.

This weekend we (Kris, Kevin, Rob, and I) went to the Maryland Renaissance Fair. A lot of it was the same as last year, but this booth was so cool I had to try on an eye patch. In addition to all of the cool things in the background, he also sold barettes with eyes. I'd love to have eyes in the back of my head, especially at work.

While we were walking around, I finally got a chance to photograph one of the lizards who live here. This one is a five-lined skink, also called a blue-tailed skink. Only the juveniles have blue tails though -- the stripes eventually fade and the males develop red heads. In't she cuuuute? They are supposed to be present in lower Michigan as well, but I never saw any.

I also saw IRA GLASS, the host of This American Life!!! He was right in front of us when we were in line for tickets. He's from Baltimore originally. I controlled myself and didn't ask him for a picture, especially since I already have one from when I saw him in Ann Arbor.

Those blue ones are teases.

Today I went with a photography group to the "Wings of Fancy" exhibit at the Brookside Gardens. I was amazed at how easy it was to get some pretty decent photos. The Blue Morphos posed a challenge for all of us -- we wanted to get a picture of them sitting still, instead of fluttering around. One of the docents pointed out to me that when they are sitting still, they look completely different because they hold their wings closed and the undersides of their wings are brown. They also prefer, unlike many of the other lepidopterans present, to get their nutrients from over-ripe fruit. See the tinge of blue on one of the bugs pictured below? A few more favorites...

(Above)Notice the contrast between red and blue on this little guy.

So velvety soft -- soft-looking, of course. We were told that if one lands on us, we were to summon an attendant to brush them off of us.

Ooooh, one more treat! Watching a monarch butterfly go from chrysalis to ready-to-fly. They can fly after about 10 minutes, I was told, although it takes about 2 hours for their wings to completely dry.