Canoeing on the Shenandoah

...is amazing...

Our friend D from grad school came down for the weekend a few weeks ago, and we had the brilliant and wonderful idea of going canoeing on the river. The Downriver Canoe Company dropped us off about 8 miles upstream, and the river was high and fast enough that we barely had to row at all. There are some small rapids and a "ledge" that's reallllllly fun to go down and we canoe past the state park, which means that there are some absolutely stunning views. It was such a perfect, relaxing, fun day to play in the water.







Come visit!

More scenes from last weekend

Some more scenes from last weekend...

We went to a 5 acre corn maze. Unfortunately due to the drought the corn was very, very small. But it was still fun!


One of the featured attractions was a pumpkin slingshot!
And Jim got to eat soft-serve ice cream for the second time. With sprinkles.


Plus, they had a pumpkin patch. This made us all really happy....

Skyline caverns

My labmate D came to visit this weekend, and we explored the Front Royal area a bit. We made it to the Skyline Caverns, which were really neat to see... it's like another world, underground.

Here are some stalactites and some flowstone...


Here's a shallow pool where the surface of the water reflects the stone ceiling above it. So cool.



Skyline Caverns is most famous for the development of calcium carbonate anthodites, which look like crystal flowers. They are absolutely amazing. They formed in a vacuum chamber that was disturbed when the caverns were being explored.




So cool!

Shenandoah valley

Some pictures of the Shenandoah River Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains.

A butterfly from our backyard.



I guess this is why they're called the Blue Ridge Mountains (this is from Skyline Drive).

More views from Skyline Drive...

The river, up close.
The Shenandoah river from Skyline Drive.

It's beautiful. Come visit.

New house!

Besides the bugs, it really is a neat house. It's small (but doesn't feel small), and doesn't have a lot of storage, so we're still in the process of weeding out the stuff we don't need. But here are some pictures!

Living room.... (now with furniture, but no pics yet)


The lake in our backyard. It's actually quite small. But it's nice having a lake in the backyard!! I've seen a bald eagle, and a sharp-shinned hawk, and herons, and kingfishers. There are also snakes, turtles, and fish, and frogs and deer and all sorts of other critters... including bears!


Our deck! It's GORGEOUS. I only wish the stinkbugs weren't so bad so we could enjoy it more...

Our backyard :-) It's a steep-ish hill to the lake, which is good, since we won't flood.
There's the house! The screened in porch is to the left. The hill in the distance behind the house is the Center where Jim works, and apparently you can occasionally see some of the African mammals that being bred at the facility.


So come visit (I've been assured that the bugs will be gone in a couple of weeks...)!

Housing updates...

So we decided against the cute adorable wonderful little bungalow in a nice neighborhood downtown. In case you were wondering, it was the one that was "decorated by a demented clown". When we saw it in person, we could see that the floors weren't actually painted black, they were just darkly stained, and the fireplace wasn't pink and orange and green, it was just covered by a screen, and the bathroom was actually quite nice, and not out of a shop of horrors. It was really, really cute.

But things are really up in the air. I don't know if I have a job past October 14th (despite being a 6 credit class, it meets for only 1/2 the semester). Jim's job is technically a 1 year contract, even though it's almost certain that they'll renew for at least a few years. We can't decide whether we want to live in town (and be walking distance from everything! with apparently friendly neighbors! but near barking dogs and cars and with a smaller yard) or out of town in the mountains (big yard! privacy! near hiking! no neighbors! no neighbors, or worse, weeeeeird neighbors, and bears! and bears... lots of bears...) And maybe we'll win the lottery and can afford a house in one of the other towns closer to Fairfax (unlikely, unless it's the MegaMillions - those towns are really steep, and snobby).

So in a nutshell, our plans are:

Friday-Saturday/Sunday- State College to finish cleaning and pack up my office
Sunday/Monday- Back to the apartment, and a day off? maybe? please?
Tuesday-Friday- work, continue in apartment
Saturday/Sunday- move (again) into rental in mountains, near the Appalachian Trail, on a small, manmake lake.

The rental will be nice! I hope. It's a two bedroom house, with a screened in porch, and an AMAZING deck with views of the center where Jim works (including apparently occasional glances of African mammals, such as ibex and wild horses and wild asses). We'll still have the cat-free guest room/office, and it has a big yard and privacy and a decent kitchen and a little propane fireplace. It's not very big (900 sq feet), but the outdoor space should help with that a lot. We can have a garden there too. It also has a laundry room that is only accessible from outside the house, which means it has the same issue as the apartment with the kitty litter (the most foul substance on the planet). I think we might put the kitty litter in the screened in porch and let the fresh air do away with its odors. We'll figure it out, I guess.

Disadvantages of the rental include the driveway, which is very steep and pointed directly at the house beneath it (so if you lost control of your car, you'd plow into the bedrooms). This gives me nightmares. We might build a wall. Also, it's hard to meet people when you work more than an hour away, and you live all alone in the forest. And it's really quite a small house, which means we may have to keep using a storage unit for some things (although a smaller, cheaper one).

Jobs are going well. Jim's happy with his class and mine is keeping me busy too.

Other than that, not too much new.... We'll post pics when we have them!

Stephanie and Jim's guide to real estate terminology

Because renting in Front Royal is expensive (and the further east you go towards DC, the more expensive it gets), we're looking into what it takes to buy a house. As it turns out, there are lots of houses that are cheap in that general area. We've spent some time looking at these houses, reading the descriptions, and figuring out what the real estate agents REALLY mean.

Capital letters in a description: House has been on the market for a LOOOONG time

Cozy: Tiny. Maybe good for a gnome.

Secluded: Far from absolutely everything. Except the bears, and maybe the ax murderers.

Professionally decorated: Decorated by a demented clown. All it needs is a merry-go-round or a house of mirrors to be complete.

All inspections complete! Sold as-is. All data approximate: Nothing to see here. We're all fine, here, now. How are you?

Sold as-is, where-is: This house bends the rules of the space-time continuum and tunnels spontaneously. We may be here, or we may not. Catch you later!

owner anxious to sell owner has moved property is vacant Additional 50 ft lot included, finished basement in good condition: But the rest of the house burned down.

Perfect home for the car enthusiast! Walk to hospital and doctor's offices: This one may not need translation, but you should upgrade your medical insurance before you move here.

Home is habitable: For about two weeks a year (unless you bring your tent) and we'll even throw in a stick to fend off the rats.

Neutral colors!: Dirty.

Great commuter location!: Far from anything that might make that commute worth making.

Furniture can convey: We have no idea what this means.

Cute cute cute: Good for at least 3 cozy gnomes.

Low maintenance exterior: More lichen than wood. Just add water!

Approximately .5 mile off hard surfaced road: Hike in.

1 bedroom dwelling: While you can live here, it's not a home.

Basement has been waterproofed: After they got rid of the ducks.

Comes with a separate garag: Who won't hurt you if you feed it once a week.

3 bedroom house garage convient location (entire listing, no pictures): We actually don't want to sell you this house.

Year built unknown!: How exciting, a mystery!

New tentative defense date

Eeek...

New defense date is August 13th! Friday... the 13th. I'm not superstitious. Not at all.

I've always had good Friday the 13ths. Really. Not like Thursday the 12ths. No, those have been bad.

I really hope my one committee member's baby stays put till the 14th (her due date is the 12th of course).

Other relevant dates:

July 28-August 1- Christoph comes to visit
July 31 - lease in Front Royal starts
August 1- wedding anniversary
August 5- Jim moves to Front Royal
August 6- Jim starts work
August 6- I go to Front Royal
August 9- Interview in Fairfax
August 13- Phd defense
September 10- last day to be in our house

Things are crazy nutso wacky busy.

Updates on moving and Shasta's fish hook

So we made a poster to send to the park where Shasta ate her fish hook, and amazingly enough, received a response right away saying that they'd pass it along to be posted. Hopefully they'll actually do that, and then Shasta's bony little skull will be famous in her PSA!

Here's the poster:

In other news, we did get that apartment (yay!), so we're going to move some stuff down in a couple weeks. Jim starts work August 6th.

Finding a new place to live...

We went down to Northern Virginia to try to find a place to live on Saturday. It's a bit of a complicated situation since Jim will be moving in the beginning of August but I'll be staying in State College primarily until after I defend (still no date).

So, we were ideally looking for something that would be pet-friendly, flexible in the lease (since I don't have a job there yet, and we don't know about the commute), and ideally inexpensive, since we're keeping our (expensive) house in State College (because, really, the stress of finding a cheaper, temporary, pet-friendly place here is just not worth it right now.)

We saw a bunch of places in Front Royal, which is a nice town - about the size of State College, but without the college, so if you can imagine State College without the University and with an expanded, more interesting downtown area you have Front Royal. It also borders Shenandoah National Park and has a ton of water sports like kayaking and canoeing in the river, which I'm really excited about!

We also saw a couple houses in Warrenton, which is about 40 minutes SE of Front Royal, and about 50 minutes SW of Fairfax. They were very cool places to see (one in a converted stable from the 1820's) but the town's a bit far from anywhere, and it's quite small, and very expensive ($6 for a loaf of white bread? I mean, it was from a bakery, but really?).

Anyway, we *think* we've decided on a place in Front Royal. It's in the historic downtown area, which is a first for us, we haven't actually lived *in* a town before. It's not too expensive and it's
really cool- it has beams in the ceiling and a clawfoot tub and a nice kitchen.

The catch: it's a 1 bedroom (it's pretty big though) and it's in a renovated hospital. From Civil War times.

I just know I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night next to some bloody Civil War soldier while a nurse is leaning over me with a knife or something.

(http://www.freewebs.com/free-offers/brown_lady_ghost.jpg)

Anyway.

So we'll need to get a storage unit until we can find a more permanent situation, and we're going to be downsizing considerably. Which isn't a bad thing.

Some pics:

The house - we'll have the unit with the door on the left. It extends to the right a bit:



The kitchen in the 1 bedroom that will hopefully work out for us:

There's an oven and at least as many cabinets on the other side. There is also a large table and 4 chairs (the apartment's furnished). The front door is behind you, and the rest of the apartment is through a door on the right. The living room is really big, and the bathroom and bedroom are beyond it. It's surprisingly spacious for a 1 bedroom apartment.



Downtown Front Royal has a really nice courtyard and gazebo in the middle where they play concerts in the summer. There are a bunch of little restaurants and bars - it seems really nice.

I'll miss State College, and moving is a pain, but northern VA looks pretty awesome too.