Sundays April 22&29, 2012

Sundays, April 22&29, 2012

Rainy 22nd but nice 29th

Country Roads

I had to attend the 30th Annual Bankruptcy Institute's  conference at  National Harbor Thursday thru Saturday.  My professional job involves working for the Bankruptcy Noticing Center which is responsible for sending a large majority of  the US Bankruptcy Courts' bankruptcy approximate 500,000 daily bankruptcy notices  so I was not able to hike on Saturday.    Sunday was very rainy and I was tired from having had a very hectic and busy time during the week so I did not get to Old Rag until 3PM.    Because of the rain there were only about 5 cars in the Old Rag parking lot and I just was not in the mood for hiking so I spent about 3 hours just exploring country roads bordering Shenandoah National Park.   I always have fun doing this because it gives me a chance to explore a lot of hollows by driving up single lane dirt roads until they dead end.

A  view of Old Rag while heading south to get to some areas bordering SNP where I had not  explored all the back roads.

A roadside Iris.

A Dogwood in bloom.

Two short videos of one of the larger bucolic country roads I explored.

Sunday April 29, 2012 FLOWERS! and BLOWDOWN

Fiddlehead

Poison Ivy

Leaves of three leave it be!

Wild Azaleas Pinxters

Next three pictures.

Meadow Rue
Silver Spring Wanderer was very kind to help with identification.   You can learn a lot about wilderness flowers by following her blog.    It is listed in my blog list to the right.

My first 2012 sighting of Wild Geranium

Lots of Trilliums were still blooming.

Blueberry (identification by Silver Spring Wanderer)

Sunset from the summit of Old Rag

A huge blowdown that fell lengthwise down the Saddle Trail.

Another shot of the sunset from Old Rag summit.

Walking out in the dark my headlamp came across a flutter of moths sucking up minerals from the trail.    It took me awhile to get my camera out and by the time I got the shot about 70% of the moths that had been in the flutter had flown away.