awwwww....

My tummy is bothering me, so I'm up late.

In an effort to make myself feel all sweet and mushy, I'm reading explodingcat...

I'm so happy I married this man.

This is what he's like with me. I wish the world could see him this way. A few people get to--those he knows and trusts and feels extremely comfortable with. I hope more people get to experience his bizarre sense of humor in real life one of these days.

Humpback Rock 4 jan 04

So, defying all rational and logical thought, boy and I climbed up to Humpback Rocks on Sunday. So we put on the most mismatched layers we could find and set off for the hills.

Humpback is a large outcropping 2-3000 feet above sea level... the climb is about 5 million feet straight up.

The view of the Shenandoah Valley is worth it. (Actually, we could also see into the eastern valley, since none of the trees were in leaf, but that's not quite as impressive.) We briefly considered climbing the southern hump, but were exerted from the mile UP hike, so we climbed down to the middle again. From that spot, we stairstepped out onto the lower promontory of the southern hump rock. Boy quickly sat down to eat while I walked out to enjoy the view and wind. (I liked it out there. so does this tree.)

We sat and ate our sandwiches, then boy settled down for a warm winter's nap, while I scrambled up on top of the southern hump.

The northern rock is easier to climb, but that didn't stop me from climbing the southern to take pictures. ;) I also clambered over to the northern side to take more pictures of boy.

After boy was rested, he joined me on the northern side. I straddled this rock, where I did not announce to the world, "Well, if I was intact before, I'm sure not now." (Incidentally, perhaps I should've saved these at a higher quality, weird little artifacts are showing up--I swear, I did no photo touching up, nor was I wearing clearasil.)

Boy found a graffito he liked, so he took a picture of it. A young man who suffers from vertigo teetered on the edge as he snapped this picture of trees menacing a fair young couple. I told boy it was time to go and he finally agreed, but I insisted on hiding behind some mountain laurel.

On the way down, this tree borrowed boy's backpack. And this rock decorated its scars with moss.