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Did you miss me last week? We were finally able to get our camper out! Though, it's expected to go below freezing again tonight, so my husband is re-winterizing it today. Our weather has been crazy! But we very much enjoyed a peaceful week of camping. Since it was supposed to hit 90 degrees here last week, we drove to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. It's about a 5-hour drive from here, but it's at least 10 degrees cooler in the park, up on top of the mountains. We enjoyed a fabulous four days of perfect weather, with lots of extra sleep in the fresh air and plenty of relaxing and reading at our beautiful campsite.
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| Pink skies over our camper our first night |
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| Ahhh ... relaxing at our campsite. |
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| Peaceful views & lots of extra reading time! |
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| We watched the trees begin to turn green last week! |
My health is still not quite up to my normal baseline, but with all the extra rest, I could manage about 90 minutes of activity each day before lunch ... though a couple of our hikes really pushed my limits and exhausted us both! I never choose a hike longer than about 1.2 miles, but in Shenandoah, on top of a ridge, every hike is either up or down (and then you have to come back up). We started with a waterfall hike, Dark Hollow Falls, though we should know better after our many visits! We didn't make it all the way to the lower falls, but we saw lots of smaller waterfalls on the way down and could see the upper and lower falls through the trees (which are still mostly bare up there). Going back up completely did us both in!
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| A view of the Upper Falls through the trees |
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| My husband and I with the falls behind us. |
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| So many beautiful little waterfalls along the trail. |
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| Lots of wildflowers in bloom! |
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| A slide along the trail. |
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| Love the sound of water! |
The next day, we took it easy and drove along part of Skyline Drive, stopping at some of the many scenic overlooks and taking a couple of very short, flat walks (100 yards) to stunning views. Then, we treated ourselves to lunch at the Skyland Lodge.
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| Colorful moss phlox! |
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| At Crescent Rock Overlook |
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| View from Crescent Rock |
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| Lunch with a view! |
There was a fire ban in effect due to drought and high winds, so we couldn't have a campfire. Instead, each evening we drove to a nearby overlook, Franklin Cliffs, to watch the sun set. What a peaceful, beautiful way to end the day! For the full experience, I'm including a video short below.
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| Gorgeous sunsets from Franklin Cliffs |
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| Enjoying sunset! |
On our last day, we did our favorite hike in the park, Bearfence Trail. It's only 1 mile long, but the "trail" often goes straight up the rock face! We hiked this trail with our sons in 2006, then again on our own in 2016. This time, 10 and 20 years later, we both thought it was a lot harder! ha ha
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| Bearfence Trail for UP right from the start! |
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| Getting trickier ... |
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| The trail goes where?? |
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| On top of Bearfence Mountain! |
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| With my son, in 2006. |
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| On top of Bearfence Mountain in 2016 |
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| Same spot in 2026! |
After Shenandoah, we drove to Greenbrier State Park in Maryland for two more nights. We were able to have campfires there, so we enjoyed some very relaxing evenings.
On Saturday, we took our kayaks out on the small lake in the park. We enjoyed the peace and tranquility of being on the water and listening to the birdsong (lots of red-winged blackbirds) and sounds of frogs in the reeds (see video short below).
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| Kayaking on Greenbrier Lake |
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| My husband and I kayaking |
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| Birds and frogs in the marshy areas! |
It was 82 and sunny on Saturday, and I was wearing shorts and flip-flops. Sunday morning, we woke up to 45 degrees and raining! We didn't have electric hook-ups so couldn't use the furnace in the camper - brrr! I had to dig out my winter coat, hat, and gloves. After breakfast, we packed up quickly and headed home.
Oh, and the week before our camping trip, we went to the movies (first time in over a year!) to see one of our all-time favorite books on the big screen: Project Hail Mary. We both loved it; it was an outstanding adaptation of a truly unique, stunning novel.
On the weekend before we left, our older son came to visit. His brother joined us, and the four of us had a wonderful time together, talking and laughing, reminiscing, sharing meals, and enjoying a campfire in the driveway.
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Coffee and Book Tag - A fun Booktube tag pairing coffee and books, including lots of great book recommendations and a question about my favorite children's books (as usual, I had several!)
Weekly Reading Update - Preparing for Booktopia and Some Great Novels!
The Booktube Adventure Tag - questions about my experiences on YouTube, to celebrate a Booktube anniversary.
Spring Cleaning for Your Spirit - From a chapter of my book, Finding a New Normal: Living Your Best Life with Chronic Illness, though several people commented that there are great tips here for anyone.
Video Shorts (under 1 minute):
Books and Authors for Booktopia 2026!
Sunset at Franklin Cliffs, Shenandoah National Park
Kayaking in Greenbrier State Park, MD
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I finished a Booktopia selection, Whidbey by T. Kira Madden. Wow, what a powerful, moving novel! It's narrated by several different women whose only link is a man named Calvin. In the opening chapter, Birdie, is on a ferry to Whidbey Island, off the coast of Washington, because she's trying to get as far from her home in Brooklyn and her childhood in Florida as she can. Her girlfriend agreed she needed some unplugged time away to rest and recharge. Calvin molested her when she was just nine years old, and now he's out of prison, in a halfway house in Florida. To make matters worse, a young woman named Linzie has just written a tell-all memoir about her abuse by Calvin (with excerpts included in the novel), and she included Birdie's story in her book, without her cooperation or agreement. We also hear from Mary-Beth, Calvin's mom in Forida, and witness her intense love and support for her son, in spite of the trouble he's been in. There is more going on below the surface with each woman. The reader gradually learns the backstories of each of these characters (and a few more), as well as their present-day situations, and there's a mystery at the heart of the book, too. It's gripping and suspenseful, but there is also so much emotional depth in this novel, and it's incredibly thought-provoking. My mom also read it recently, so we've been talking about it. I can't wait to meet the author at Booktopia! The booksellers at Northshire Books always choose amazing books for the festival!
Next, I read another Booktopia selection (as I will be doing all of April!), The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush by Susan Gregg Gilmore. This was a beautifully-written, moving novel set in a small town in Tennessee in 1961. Leonard, the title character, is just twelve years old when he has his leg amputated due to an infection. The novel opens with a funeral for Leonard's leg. It was his idea to bury his leg in the family cemetery, with a full service, to help him "move on," as the doctor had recommended. But no one is able to move on. Leonard's mom, June, gets angrier and angrier, as the loss of Leonard's leg brings forward the loss of her mother when she was a child. Leonard's dad, Emmett, is trying to run his dairy farm, but he finds that this new loss reminds him of the loss of his little sister when he was very young. Leonard's best friend (and crush), Azalea, is dealing with her own issues, taking care of her baby brother, as her mother, the town prostitute, retreats more and more into herself. Townspeople--first kids but then adults, too--come to Leonard with their secrets and guilty consciences and ask him to bury some sort of emblem of their pain, alongside his leg in his family's cemetery. This is a story about grief and the different ways that people hold onto it. Ultimately, it is a story about healing. I loved it, and so did my mom; she proclaimed it the best book she's read in ages!
Now, I am reading another Booktopia pick, Counting Lost Stars by Kim van Alkemade. Besides being a best-selling author, Kim also works at one of Northshire's stores as a bookseller and was a last-minute fill-in guest author at Booktopia last year. I'm so glad I finally have a chance to read one of her books! This is fascinating historical fiction, with a dual timeline. In 1961, 21-year-old Rita Klein has just been released from a home for unwed mothers. When she became pregnant after one night with an older businessman she met in one of her college classes, she was kicked out of college (in the midst of her senior year) and sent to the home. While her family and the manager of the home insist that giving up her baby was the best thing for both of them, Rita isn't so sure. She gets a job working with early computers, one of the few women in early computer programming, and meets a man named Jacob who survived the Holocaust and Auschwitz. In 1941, Cornelia Vogel is a punch-card operator in the Dutch Ministry of Information, run by her father. The more she works with the early computers, the more she realizes the full extent of the horror of what Hitler is doing ... and using Dutch citizens like her and her father to do it. After meeting a young Jewish woman her age named Leah, Cornelia begins to wonder if there is anything she can do to help. This engaging novel pulled me right in from the very first chapter, and the history about early computers is really interesting. I am equally engrossed in both storylines, and I suspect they will intersect at some point.
My husband, Ken, is reading Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby. He says he's enjoying it and it's well-written, but it's quite violent ... which is exactly why I haven't yet tried this author, despite all the rave reviews I've heard!
Ken's daytime "slow read" is Moby Dick by Herman Melville, a classic we've both been meaning to read for years. It only made one appearance on our trip last week, but he says he's enjoying it, and he's amazed by how relevant the writing is, given how long ago it was written.
Our son, 31, finished The Will of the Many, book 1 of The Hierarchy series by James Islington. It was recommended to him by a friend after he finished Islington's Licanius trilogy (which he loved), and he really enjoyed this first book in a new-to-him series. When he was visiting, he was reading Kagan the Damned by Jonathan Maberry, book one of a series. He found this one at 2nd and Charles, a used bookstore we have here, on his last visit.
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What are you and your family reading this week?
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