Get Thee To The Woods, Vol. 9: A Blessed Camping Weekend

Shenandoah National Park is one of our favorite places to go camping. We don't camp as often as we would like, and even though Shenandoah is reasonably close to where we live, we don't get many chances to visit. Our trip there over the weekend was filled with many blessings!

The many deer, which were a constant presence in the campground...

The little chipmunks who tried to stay out of sight; this one stayed still long enough for us to snap his picture.

When Curly and Moe went exploring near our camp,


...they found the Appalachian Trail,


...and a spring. Presumably this sign is to direct thirsty hikers to a nice fresh source of water.








We took a lovely hike through the forest

to see this pretty waterfall.

The views from the trail (and from all over the park) are spectacular.

Moe had fun climbing on the rocks.

We even spotted a black bear. Can you see it?

I think he was looking at us.

(When we saw the grizzly bear on our trip to Yellowstone last summer, the best pictures only showed a small brown blob in the distance. Joe and the kids decided to buy me a telephoto lens for my next birthday. Even with this, it was hard to get a good shot; maybe the fact that Joe was impatient for me to hurry up and leave the premises before the bear spotted us had something to do with it.)


There were NO video games allowed in camp!

Hey, who snuck in that MP3 player??

We took a lovely walk in the Big Meadow,

...where there were scads of wild blueberries.

The deer were munching them happily.

This one just wanted to relax.

There were so many bumblebees, we could hear them buzzing all around us.

(When we got back to camp, I found a bumblebee between my sock and the top of my hiking boot. I almost wore sandals to the meadow; now I'm thankful I did not!)

Everywhere we went this weekend, there were scores of butterflies (and other insect friends) gathering nectar from the countless wildflowers.

The evenings were just as much fun; the kids roasted marshmallows,

had smoke-saber battles,

and played with sparklers.

(I swear, this was NOT my idea. I'm sure we were breaking the rules with this one.)

I wish I could have taken a picture of the stars that were so bright on Friday night, or the shooting star I spotted just above the trees. Even though sleeping on the ground with nothing but a thin air mattress under you isn't very comfortable, the sounds of the night insects, the gentle rain on the tent roof (despite the leak in our brand-new tent...grrr...) and the wind in the trees makes it all worth it.

Last week my friend Ginny of the "Small Things" blog took her family here; check out her post about their Shenandoah adventure. (Believe me, you don't want to miss it; her photos are much better than mine.) Without planning it, we both took our families to the same place and saw some of the same things. (We think we both saw the same bear, too.) I only wish we had stopped at the Barbecue place where they went on the way home. Next time.

UPDATE, JULY 2011: We just returned from another wonderful Shenandoah weekend. Click here for some of the highlights!

(We passed the barbecue place in Sperryville today on our way back. We weren't hungry, so we kept driving. One of these days we'll stop there.)

Lisa at 5 Orange Potatoes posted some lovely photos this week of an afternoon she spent at a little pond with her daughter. Check it out!