Random title much? I know - it definitely is, ha-ha! I made the comment to my Mom on Monday that'd I'd really been living hard/living my best life because every day of the long weekend required more than one shower! I suppose that was my way of saying that I spent the past weekend doing all sorts of activities and with the weather being much warmer than expected - there was quite a bit of sweating involved. Blegh!
Friday evening we had dinner at Regions 117 - the restaurant that is part of the Clubhouse at Lake Frederick; the food is always delicious and Friday night was no exception! An 80's cover band was playing at the clubhouse but I decided to head home instead and I spent some time with my pup and snapped some pictures of the storm brewing on the horizon. I had my fingers crossed that the rain would cool things off but not hang around into Saturday - and while the rain didn't hang around into Saturday, it also certainly didn't cool things off!
Saturday morning after coffee, we headed to one of my favorite things - the Virginia Scottish Games! My family; through my Dad's side, have Scottish ancestry and the Virginia Scottish Games celebrate all things Scottish - it's wonderful! Great Meadows, an area about thirty minutes from the house is set up with all things Scottish - music, dancing, food, sports, animals, living history - it's absolutely wonderful and this is the second year in a row we've attended. I love every minute of it!
We started the morning off with a perusal of some of the booths selling all things tartan, plaid and Scottish and visited with Rowan the Highland Cattle. The competitions were underway on the main field - the women were doing the sheep toss and the men were doing the hammer throw; we watched a couple people compete before grilling the gentlemen dressed as Jacobite soldiers about the Battle of Culloden and then grabbed a seat to listen to the Glengerry Bhoys play some awesome music!
I also took an amazing video of the Opening Ceremonies - it is absolutely so moving to hear the drums and bagpipes playing and watch the band moving across the field. I just couldn't love it more!
The Opening Ceremonies include the Clan Parade and that's always interesting and fun to watch - so before it started, we decided to grab our lunch and a seat to watch the proceedings. I got Shepherd's Pie and my Dad purchased the Celtic Combo: Scottish BBQ, Shepherd's Pie and Haggis! *ick* My friend Danielle went full on crazy and just got Haggis for lunch - and while I did find the bravery to taste a bite, I don't know that my Scottish roots run quite deep enough to imbue me with a love of haggis. *gulp*
Once the Opening Ceremonies and lunch were finished up, we perused the rest of the booths - we made sure to grab some Welsh Cookies (always yummy) to have for later. The Welsh cookies are a much more dense cookie...almost like a cross between a cookie and a biscuit, really delicious! We made our way down to check out the Dogs of Scotland, watch a little Highland Dance competition and a herding demonstration that was really fascinating! The little dog would creep through the grass to herd the goats and it was hilarious... I wish I'd taken video of that! We rounded out the day with some music in the fiddling tent courtesy of The Devil's Tailor and then I purchased a new ring before we headed home!
I never put on a lick of sunscreen because the weather forecast for Saturday was mostly cloudy with a 50% chance of rain. I'm sure you can tell by the pictures - it was not mostly cloudy and the rain didn't arrive on the scene until much later in the day, so I arrived home with a pretty nice sunburn - oops! We had dinner on Saturday night at Macado's and then continued the Scottish theme with two episodes of
Outlander before hitting the sack... Should I mention that I took the
second shower of the day before hopping in bed - because of all the sweating?
Sunday dawned warm...and honestly just got warmer! I know it's only the first week of September but I am ready for the cooler weather... We chatted with my sister on Facebook Messenger before heading out to church and then to grab lunch at Cracker Barrel. While it was warm outside, it was also an absolutely gorgeous day and so after passing a couple hours just poking around, reading and doing nothing - we decided to head into the National Park and do a little hiking.
We decided to do the Land's Run Falls Trail - the trail itself is on 0.9 of a mile and is categorized as easy. You aren't actually on a rugged trail, it's a fire road so the path is very clear...even though it's also quite rocky. The trail goes down, down, down all the way until you come on a stream and a waterfall dropping off the right side of the trail - which is obviously more dramatic after rain. The way down was easy...but the air was thick and muggy so within minutes of starting the hike, we were all drenched in sweat.
The trail placed you at the top of the falls, looking down on the water and I'd read in the All Trails app that you could climb down and look up at the falls - if you were feeling adventurous. Well - I was feeling just that and so I tucked my phone into my shirt, handed Watson over to my Dad and began making my way carefully through the trees and rocks on the right of the falls... it didn't take too long and I was farther down the falls, which allowed me to turn back and take some pictures and a video before climbing back up.
The climb back up wasn't too bad - I paused to take a picture of some rocks cropping up alongside the trail as we walked and managed to keep Watson (mostly) on the trail. My Mom took things a little slower and the heat bothered her a bit more...but once she caught sight of a black snake crossing the trail, she found a little more pep in her step and we all made our way back up the trail and to the car! Ha-ha! We stopped at the Dickey Ridge Visitor's Center to use the bathrooms and my Dad ordered pizza for pick-up on the way home.
We rounded out the evening with pizza, the second shower of Sunday - so much sweating, I swear...and my Mom watched the finale of the third season of
Outlander - so now she just has to wait for season four like everyone else! I absolutely slept like a log on Sunday night - it was wonderful - especially so because I knew I didn't have to get up early on Monday!
Monday was another warm day... I think the temperature hovered somewhere around 95 and the humidity was insane! After breakfast and coffee, my Mom and I hopped in the car and made our way to Nationals Park for the Labor Day baseball match up between my Washington Nationals and the St. Louis Cardinals. The metro ride took much longer than expected and we finally arrived at the Park at 12:35 - and yet we still managed to snag free zip up hoodies! Score!
Thankfully our seats were in the shade - otherwise the game would have had the potential to be miserable! Happily we were able to eat our slices of pizza and Dippin Dots while cheering on our Nationals from the relative cool that the shade provided; I don't know how the people in the direct sunlight weren't melting! I won't even get started on the baseball players - yikes!
Trea Turner hit a home run in the first inning and Max Scherzer got 11 strike outs on the day - which is excellent - even if it did seem like he wasn't quite feeling like himself. The game didn't have a lot of hits, but Bryce Harper tied the game at 3-3 in the bottom of the 9th with a 2 run home run and then went on the secure the win with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 10th that allowed Michael A. Taylor to score the winning run!
The way my schedule for September is playing out - this was likely my last Nationals game of the season and I did have to wonder if this might be the last time I'd see Bryce play in a Nationals jersey. The Nationals have been trading players right and left over the past few weeks... I unknowingly watched Daniel Murphy play for the last time in a Nationals jersey two weeks ago and it was also the last time I got to see Gio Gonzalez pitch as a National... I suppose that's the nature of baseball, but it doesn't mean I look forward to seeing players go to other teams.
Our return trip home was much more "on time" and once we arrived back at the house, I whipped up some brownies for a friend's birthday, took the second washing of the day and loved on my puppy some.
It was such a good weekend - it seemed like it passed in the blink of an eye, but then the saying isn't "time slows down when you're having fun"...so I suppose that all makes sense. I don't actually have a single thing planned for this weekend - so I have no idea what I'll find to get into but I'm so glad I was able to make wonderful memories over this Labor Day weekend!
