Come Hike with Us. Shenandoah National Park: Big Meadows.

I'd like to say that "Come Hike with Us" will be a series. So here's the Shenandoah Big Meadows version.

With baby.

We did the Story of the Forest Trail on Saturday with my sisters and younger cousins. It was going well until a group of people warned they saw a bear and our group split up in opposite directions. I headed onward with one of my sisters, one of cousins, another family member, and the baby while my husband escorted two of my sisters and cousin (4 years old) back to the car.



Did we see the bear as we moved along? No. Was I worried about it? Slightly. No. Generally, black bears are not frazzled by people. They hear us coming, especially if we sing or are carrying a babbling, screeching, smiley baby, and move along to stay out of trouble. If the bear already crossed the trail without a care of the people on it, there's little reason this bear would shape up to trouble. I'll write a more detailed post on hiking and camping in bear country another time, but suffice it to say your chances of being attacked by a crazy bear are sort of the same as your chances of being attacked by a crazy person. Bears don't keep me out of the woods.

We started with Gabe in the stroller, but he was not happy headed down the rocks so we switched him over to the Moby Wrap. This was manageable for me, but I had to be extra careful with my footing. And we were not on a strenuous or even moderate trail, though we were in the mountains so some uphill/dowhill/rocks were in the path.

On Sunday morning, we did the Meadow Walk. It was at a perfect time of day... just after Gabe's oatmeal and fruit. He always gets very full, fussy, and sleepy, and if you handle the situation just right (which I do not always do), he goes down for a nap. And he did. Right in his stroller on the way into the meadow. He woke up in the middle of the talk, and he was happy to watch the grass roll by him. It gave me some time to shoot some nature photography, a hobby of mine that I love (I only use a point and shoot for now, though). Here are my faves from the Meadow Walk...

A carpet of bluets in the meadow.

Well, hi there, spider.

Without baby.

So sweet of my sister, she offered to babysit Gabe so that my husband and I could go hike alone for a few hours on Sunday. With our anniversary on the 31st, it was awesome to have some time alone and to get out on a trail much more our speed.

It was certainly a challenge for me to hike the Lewis Falls Trail's switchbacks because I have sort of fallen off my strict work out routine (I am down 57 pounds since I had Gabriel, though-- 50 of those were pregnancy pounds), but it felt so good to do it.

What's more romantic than a trail bathed in mountain laurel?

It was like returning to my old self again, and I think every woman needs to feel like they've returned to themselves at some point after having a baby. That hike was my little moment, and it certainly gave me the itch to get backpacking asap (this will not happen until Gabe is headed toward being weaned, which will probably really hit hard -at this rate and with G's hardcore love of food- in October of this year).

The view looking left on Blackrock.

My husband and I love hiking, and we are by no means limited by having Gabe around-- we are happy to tote him on adventures-- but we cannot do hikes like the Lewis Falls Trail with him. No strollers or wraps make that a safe trip. Anyway, our little Sunday hike was a 3.3. mile loop of awesome, complete with a moment at an amazing overlook just to ourselves. *Oh swoon.*

Shenandoah Go Green.

In this day and age, it only makes sense that a National Park's lodge function in an eco-friendly way. For the Big Meadows Lodge in Shenandoah, green efforts are par for the course when it comes to hotel happenings.

A. The housekeeper only will replace your sheets if you place a specific card on your bed asking for it. Otherwise, he or she makes your bed nice and neat, but you reuse and reduce wash loads. This makes TOTAL sense. Who changes their sheets everyday anyway?


B. The housekeeper only replaces your towels if you place them in a pile on the floor of your bathroom. If you hang your towels after use, you give the message you will reuse them. Other than the need for a washcloth or two, it was no prob for us to skip the new towels.





C. Recycle by collecting paper, plastic, and glass items in this handy dandy little hamper. Sweet!










D. In the shower, a dispenser reduces on hotel shampoo, conditioner, and soap waste. It's just not neccessary to have the little trinkets to bring home, and this way, the housekeeper can stock up your room's soaps and let them be.

Riding in Cars with Babies

Let's just start at the very beginning, shall we? Our trip to Shenandoah National Park commenced on Friday in the early afternoon. David, my husband, took a half day, and I picked him up from the train to get a speedy start.

Well, speedy is not the word to use for our ride to Virginia on the Friday prior to Memorial Day. We crawled our way around Baltimore to I-81 South with a screaming baby, stopping three times for him to nurse and once to eat dinner over our ten-hour (from the time Goober was strapped in to pick up his Daddy from work) excursion.

Gabe looking fresh and happy after one of his three breaks on our ride down to VA.

Honestly, things went all right, but Gabe needed serious entertainment the entire time. As in, read me a book, talk to me, play peek-a-boo, show me how to clap and make me clap, play with me, give me different toys every 5 minutes, hum and bob your head to my favorite Baby Einstein CD, no-I-will-not-take-a-nap, entertainment.

Luckily, as he started to fuss from the ear-popping changes as we hit the rise in elevation up to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Skyline Drive, I grabbed a bottle for him to suck. And it quieted him down and soothed him so that my poor husband could focus on the somewhere around two feet of visibility in front of our car at 9 p.m. Ironically, my parents pulled out of the Skyland Resort's parking lot (where they, all of my sisters and parents ate dinner because they all got there way ahead of us) as we scuttled along the Drive to the Big Meadows Lodge (where we all stayed), and my Dad was particularly impressed with Dave's driving in fog/cloud skills. My husband is unusually talented at no street lamp mountain fog driving. I'd say that's a great skill to have.

A view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from the Skyline Drive

The drive home was much, much better. I credit that to Gabe's behavior always being better earlier in the day, the fact that Gabe took two naps on the way home, and that the traffic was drastically reduced. We also were able to enjoy the complete drive and views along Shenandoah's Sklyline Drive on the way home, which we could not remotely see on the way to the lodge.

I will say that Gabe, was not always the most behaved on the way home... when he wants to be held, he does not take "We'll get to the next exit for you to nurse, honey," very well. You can see that whole picture below.


Anyway, it took us just over six and one half hours to get home, stopping just once per Gabe's feeding cues-- much better than the original ten!

My husband, Gabe, and I have all been pretty tired since we got home. Gabe went down to bed by 9 p.m. last night *gasp* and only got up once to nurse around 11:30, and then slept on until 7 a.m. I went to bed at 9:30 p.m., which is usually impossible and extremely unlike me to do. I still felt exhausted 7 a.m., and I am very tired now. My husband is in the middle of a summer semester of grad school, so add in all his driving over the past week with work stress, grad papers, and being a Dad/husband, and you can imagine how tired he is right now. So we're all headed to bed! We've got another roadtrip coming up in August when we go on vacation to Vermont so we'll see how that ride goes.

As for Shenandoah, I'll be posting so much more on the specifics of our trip. It was a beautiful weekend. **Spoiler Alert** My husband and I even got to do a 3.3 mile hike by ourselves!

We're back!

And I have so much to share about exploring Shenandoah with baby in tow. I'm working on getting photos together for a great little guide to our 3-day away.

Big non-Shenandoah news?

A. Gabe is only biting once (if that) per day now. Woohoo! We made it through.

B. Yesterday was our (my husband and I) second wedding anniversary. I love him so much. There he is above, admiring a view from Blackrock.


Much more to come...

To the mountains!

We're off to Virginia tomorrow afternoon for a weekend with family in Shenandoah National Park. I'm sure I'll have a myriad of posts Monday onward regarding our travels.

In any case, we are driving southbound in the Memorial Day traffic mayhem, and what I''m worried about more than traffic is how our Goober is going to handle a six hour roadtrip.

We've got books, we've got toys, we've got music, and we've got our good looks (snicker), but regardless, we're heading up, up, up in elevation. Even an amused baby boy can have a hard time adjusting to the ear-popping changes.

One way to help with changing elevation? Nurse or feed your baby as you rise. Nursing works in air travel, but obviously, that's not safe or legal in a car. If in a car, you can use a bottle. The suction should help level things out for the baby.

I'm packing a bottle with us for the trip to the mountains. I'll let you know if we need it and/or if it works in soothing Gabriel during the transition!

Bon Voyage to our little family. I'll be back Monday!