Braley Pond camping and Mother's day

The weather on Friday was phenomenal. Low humidity, no chance for rain, warm in the sun, cool in shade. Ideal. I ran some errands and dropped off a gift to the nutritionist I was allowed to shadow. Which was awesome! Another post on that. I got all my camping stuff prepped and ready and loaded and picked up Kaz and we headed west to Braley Pond.

My friend Kirk found this place a couple years ago and I'd been a couple times with him and a big group as it's a great spot for large group car camping. Nice fire pits, secluded, free, and there's a bathroom near by. We used it before as a base camp for biking. We'd shuttle our bikes up the hill a ways away and ride down to Braley pond and get picked up. It was great! But there's also hiking there which is what we did this past weekend.

trillium flower

On our way west, we stopped by Rebecca's Natural Food Store in Charlottesville and picked up some interesting snacks. Found some interesting "pasta" in the Pumpkin and Ginger as well as Sweet Potato and Buckwheat varieties. I got some hot sauce too. More on that in a second. Good stuff and interesting stuff you don't see in the regular grocery stores. 

We got to the campsite and started a fire and set up camp and made some dinner. Chicken and purple sweet potatoes and peppers and onions over the fire. Since we forgot to bring any seasonings for the chicken we thought the hot sauce might be a good addition. It was supposed to mango flavored and it was "raw" with probiotics and such.  Well, for some reason, still a mystery, it exploded like a beer bottle after shaking. And got all over Kaz and her warm jacket. Luckily we had some sake to drink. Which I spilled a little on her jeans... it was a rough night. But still fun. Stars were amazing though, on the cool, cloudless night. Just a little bit of awesome!

fire pit

Sleep was hard to come by though. After eating a gluten free brownie for dessert, which unfortunately had espresso powder, the caffeine high, along with the big pick up truck that kept driving by the camp site, neither of us slept very much. We hiked the Little Bald Knob Ridge the next day. It was a nice trail, although the views were few and far between. It was another ideal day though and it was great to just be outside in the woods with great company and no distractions. It really was a great hike.

We did a minor off road excursion to check out another camp site on our way out which was also fun. I love me some all wheel drive and higher ground clearance. While not the Tacoma Kirk has or a true off road vehicle, the Subie was great. I installed a hitch on the car mid December, and it actually helped keep my mufflers in place at one point. Here are some more pictures.

We got back in town tired but happy, and met up with Jen at Stella's for some Greek dinner. Octopus, calamari, cheese and dolmades were our choices and finished off with a rice pudding. Great food, expensive drinks, but all very enjoyable.

On Mother's day, I drove down to Norfolk to see my Aunt, her mom, and cousins. We had a nice family dinner and watched the dogs run around. It was nice catching up with them since I've been bad about visiting the family that is so close. All in all, another fantastic weekend. Lots of driving and lots of great places to be, and great people to be with.