Harrisonburg Wind-Sucking Weekend

Another Living Social Escape took us to Harrisonburg, VA this weekend. We upgraded our voucher to stay in the Quill Cottage.

It was worth the extra money, if for no other reason than this was the best picture they could give us for our bathroom in the room we were originally scheduled to stay in.

oooohhhh.....a sink!
And this is the bathroom of the cottage we did stay in.

Yes - that's a huge (biggest I've seen) Jacuzzi tub right next to a fireplace. The fireplace split the cottage - on the other side was the bedroom. You might not think upgrading for a bathroom is worth the $$, but I knew going in I was going to need a really long soak in a hot Jacuzzi bath after our bike ride Saturday, so I felt it was definitely worth the moola.
One thing I loved about this place - they delivered our breakfast to the room each morning. That was nice, as we never had to get dressed and walk to the main house. We just grabbed the picnic basket off the patio, ate in a sleepy stupor, and then went back to bed. Or at least, that's what the SigO did. I read. A silly book. Great for those of you who are Star Trek fans. Oh, wait - I just remembered - none of my five readers read Star Trek. Well, just take my word for it then.

Saturday we went for our ride. Here's the ride I planned for us:

Here's the elevation gain and loss - doesn't look so bad, does it?

IT LIES!

Those hills were a hell of a lot tougher than they look on that graph! They were! Really!! And if you don't believe me, then how did we get such great views? Huh? Huh??

And no - it's not because we started up high. In fact, when we arrived, our innkeeper said "Welcome to the valley." So there!

Doms - this valley is a tad bit different than the one you grew up in. For starters, there are actual mountains around it. Which brings me to a question I've never asked...how can Pharr, TX be called "The Valley" when there's not a mountain in sight? What is it? The valley of the shadow of death? That I could believe.

So, we didn't make the entire ride. Here's what we actually did.

I've inserted a little stick figure everywhere I had to get off and walk my bike.My bike that weighs all of 12lbs - so, let me tell you - it was all my tonnage being pushed up those hills - or more frequently walked up those hills. Won't it be lovely when I have considerably less tonnage to haul around?

In the end, what should have been a 27 mile ride was more like 17. Still, at least we were out there riding our bikes, instead of winery hopping, which is what we've done for most of our weekend excursions lately. Which, I suspect, is why there are so many little stick figures on that map.

Sunday we went for a hike. I picked up a leaflet at the visitor center giving us directions to Hone Quarry Recreation Area for a 5.3 mile hike. The directions were hideous! We ended up at Todd Lake on a hike up Trimble Mountain. Here's my fitbit dashboard for that day.

First, don't believe the part about it being over eight miles. I haven't put my stride length in fitbit yet, so, it thinks 17,000 steps is roughly 8 miles for me. But, with a 34" inseam, I gotta doubt the veracity of that. The map said it was a four mile loop. But then, this is the same map that had us absolutely nowhere near Hone Quarry, so I'm going to compromise between Fitbit and the map and go for somewhere in the neighborhood of six miles. That's assuming roughly a 15 minute mile, which is about right for a walk with a climb like this. And speaking of climbs, do you see how high we climbed? The equivalent of 134 flights! I will admit that three of those flights were at home - and by that time, I was crawling up the stairs more than walking. Still - I'm impressed with our accomplishment. Apparently the fitbit device wasn't though. I got a message at 125 flights that said: "Do your legs hurt? You should go for 150 flights!" Really? I mean, really??

And what really hurts - all that way up, and this is the best view we could get.

//sigh//. Too many dead trees and brown leaves blocking the view. These pretty little violets were struggling to make themselves seen though.

And this lake was at the very beginning of the hike and looks like it would be a great place for a swim - when it's warmer.

Of course, by then, the unwashed masses will be there too and we won't have it all to ourselves like we did this weekend. So, really, I can't complain. It was a good weekend.