Hi friends! Matt and I had a fun adventure this weekend: a hike in Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland!
As I mentioned last week, Matt’s brother Drew and his wife Morgana are here visiting right now, and they offered to hang out with Riese for a day so Matt and I could go off and have a day date, which was very kind of them!
Hiking at Catoctin Mountain Park
We decided to head to Catoctin Mountain Park at the suggestion of a friend. We weren’t the only ones with that idea on such a gorgeous Saturday, but luckily Catoctin is a really large park with lots of trail options (25 miles of trails!), so once we locked down a parking spot and got on the trails it was really lovely to be out there.
We originally planned to hike the Chimney Rock loop, but all the parking was full, so we headed father up the mountain and did a loop of a bunch of different trails, including Blue Ridge Summit Overlook:
Thurmont Vista:
And Hog Rock, which was an area with a really fun rock scramble.
Matt and I both love a good rock scramble. 🙂 It’s why Old Rag Mountain is our favorite hike of all time… so much so that we got engaged there back in 2011!
Anyway! For food, we stopped at Market to Market in Del Ray before leaving to grab Italian subs to bring with us on the trails – we stopped at one of the vistas and enjoyed the subs plus some unpictured chips, clementines, veggies, etc. that we brought from home.
We were thinking of stopping at a brewery on our way home, but we ended up staying on the trails for about 4 hours so by the time we were done, we had to head back to make sure we were home in time for dinner.
Such a fun day – thanks for the treat, Drew and Morgana!
Biking to Old Town, Alexandria
Other highlights from the weekend included taking Riese on a fun bike ride from our place to Old Town, Alexandria:
We locked up our bikes and walked around for quite awhile – we ended up getting carried away and missing the naptime window (whoops), but it was so gorgeous out and we were enjoying it so much it was worth it!
I always love being by the water and it was fun exploring with Riese.
We thought about getting lunch at one of the outdoor restaurants, but everything had a wait so we came home and had an easy throw together lunch instead. Next time!
Since it was cold out this weekend at night, we decided to do our first fire pit of the season one of the nights – Riese had her first s’mores experience and loved it!
She was very intent on making her marshmallow perfect. The first one she tried fell in and she was quite upset, so she brought her serious A game for round 2:
One last highlight from the weekend was going out to dinner at Eveningstar Cafe last night – they have such a great outdoor set up and it has been our go to anytime it’s nice out.
We did a lot of snacking yesterday and I wasn’t super hungry so instead of my usual burger, I went for the tomato soup + pesto toast, which was super good:
Plus a big salad with berries and cheese, and a bunch of unpictured fries we all shared.
I will leave you with a hot tip for those of you who have been enjoying outdoor fitness classes. Someone at outdoor yoga recently had a shower curtain under their mat and it was genius – I tried it Friday and it worked so well!
So much better than a towel which just gets soaked immediately and then gets my mat all wet, too. Plus then walking home with a super light shower curtain is easier than a water-soaked towel. 😉
Have a nice day and I’ll see you back here on Wednesday with a new recipe!
