I hope my description of Father's Day Weekend can do justice to all the time and energy Nikki put into planning it. I guess it was way back in January that she decided we should go camping at Shenandoah and she booked it back then. Since then, she's been cobbling together the details. The level of subterfuge and deception she used to conceal her plans should scare you a little.
I got home Friday morning from work and got a little sleep. When I woke up about noon, we did some last minute errands and then hit the road. At Nikki's insistence, I wore a blindfold for the first 20-30 minutes of the drive. This was uncomfortable and was making me a little nauseous. I'm sure it also confused a few of our fellow drivers. I tried to track where we were going by feel but lost the route after about three turns. I guess I'll never be a secret agent.
When I took the blindfold off, we were on I-66 outside the beltway. This was confusing. Any notion I had of where we were going was either north or south of us. The only thing west of us in this direction is West Virginia and Shenandoah. Ah, Shenandoah. My suspicions were confirmed when we turned down US 29 toward Culpeper. It was at this point that we pulled over and I started driving.
Everything made sense until we got to Culpeper. Then Nikki told me to jog north on an unfamiliar road. That didn't make sense. Then a few miles later she told me to turn right down a country lane and I saw a sign for our destination -- Cibola Farms bison ranch. Nikki had called around to different farms to see who would let me tour their land and she settled on Cibola as the one I would like the most.
It was really fascinating to see a working bison ranch. Bison are not domesticated so handling them is a lot different. Basically, you don't handle them. You let them be. The get herded into a squeeze shoot only twice in their lives -- once to get ear tags and a once over from the vet and once to get slaughtered. Their lives (usually 2-3 years before slaughter) are otherwise unfettered. Except for agri-tourists gawking at them that is.
We wandered a while up their lane and watched the bison. They also have chickens, turkeys, geese, and pigs. We didn't see the pigs but saw all the others. Georgie loves the sound of turkeys (and the sound of my impression of turkeys).
We then went shopping at their farmstand. We bought bison patties, pork chops, pork cutlets, a bison tongue, and bison liver. The bison tongue and liver and the pork cutlets are for this week. Everthing else was for camping.
Then we made our way to Standardsville and into the park. It was a lovely drive.
Complete with bunnies.
We had a nice dinner of bison burgers, saw the above deer, and just kind of played around our cabin area. Georgie loved the cabin. Her spirits are noticibly higher when she's outside. I mean she's almost always in a good mood, but you can see her at her most curious and attentive when in the great outdoors.
Before bed, I got a look at my presents -- a very nice fishing rod and reel, a tacklebox with some nice new lures in it, a copy of A Walk in the Woods, a mixed six pack of beer themed around fishing and summer, and a fancy schmancy Kelty Georgie-carrier.
The next morning, as you'll recall, I was greeted by this guy:
I think he just wanted me to make him a cup of coffee but I didn't chance it. I figured there was a mama bear around somewhere who was less friendly.
Saturday was supposed to be fishing day but we were rained out. It did clear enough to take a brief hike around the Dark Hollow Falls trailhead and try out the carrier.
Saturday night we grilled our pork shops with peaches. The pork was amazing. It comes from heritage breed, pastured pigs. The fat on the outside got crispy and had so much flavor.
Sunday was sunny so we packed up and headed for our fishing hike along the Rose River.
Our little trooper was ready to go.
These are the Rose River falls.
These are tree-borne mushrooms.
We got all the way to the halfway point of the four-mile hike and didn't find what I thought would be a good place to fish. It was shallow and most of it could be jumped across. I don't know much about fishing but it just didn't seem right.
I cast my line anyway and mostly got it stuck in trees.
We gave up and had a hell of an uphill hike back to the car. When we got to the parking lot, a guy told me he had caught a ton of fish the weekend before in the exact place I had been fishing. Wha??? That was both frustrating and exciting to hear. Frustrating because I gave up to easy but exciting because it's only a mile down the the good fishing. We'll have to go back now.
So that's it. What an amazing weekend. I can't imagine someone doing a better job of designing a custom vacation for me. I am the luckiest father (and husband) in the world. Now I have to start planning next Mother's Day I guess. The bar is pretty high!
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