Farmlife - White Post, VA
White Post, VA
Where I stayed
Auntie Emily and Uncle Jimmy's
What I did
Shenandoah Valley Virginia
Sky Meadows State Park Delaplane
Old Rag Mountain
Initially our plan was to come and stay with the lads for a week or so, get the car sorted and get on the road. Our first week was over before we knew it though! Emily's sister Joan was visiting from Boston, and Ian and William were both back our first weekend, so the extended family hit the country club for some tennis / golf / pool action. I've decided I life gold, but only the part where you whack it - the short game rather bores me!
We were invited to go kayaking with Joan and her friends Liz and Boz. We hired our gear from Watermelon park and they dropped us off 8 miles up the Shenandoah river. It was a beautiful day on the water, say some great birdlife along the way and enoyed the paddle. The water was flowing our way so it wasn't all that tough (8miles sounds long for what we did!)
Emily took us to the Sky Meadow State park for a bit of a hike another day. It's beautiful countryside around here, and some great views from the top of the Blueridge mountains. Emily saw the ass end of a bear on the drive in so we were hoping for some bear action. It wasn't to be sadly, but we did get a great shot of an eagle of some sort, firstly on the ground, and then as he took off with his dinner in his talons. Poor squirrell!
Our next adventure was hitting the road to hike Old Rag mountain with Ian, Kelsey and Wills. I used to like William, I swear it, but I would have cursed him the whole way up that mountain had I had the breath to do it! Lets just say the boy sets a good pace! I didn't want to be the old whingebag cousin, so I kept up.....to a point. I knew it was time to throw in the towel when my windpipe closed over and I had to get on the old asthma puffer out - hello my old friend, I haven't seen you since I was playing U-14 football with the Fintans! After lunch was better. We dined on a huge boulder overlooking the Shenandoah National Park with an INCREDIBLE view. Then the climb turned into more canyoning stuff - actual climbing over big rocks rather than sprinting up a hill. I actually loved the second half, and William was 100% forgiven by the time we got back to the car. There was a great lemonade stand at the base of the hike too. A gaptoothed, bearded, banjo weilding hilbilly (if that's a PC term these days?) had set up shop and was selling some amazeballs (ay Kelsey!) homemade lemonade. He didn't look like he had done much of a business plan on the place but if this stall was on the stock market I'd invest! Everyone coming down there was getting a hit!
We settled into a nice pattern. We'd sleep till about 10am (bliss!), enjoy a bagel with cream cheese and a cup of barrys tea for breakfast. Every second day we'd go running. Emily's marathon antics inspired me to try at least get up to a 10km run...and it's still a work in progress but have been consistently hitting 6.5 to 7.5km's, so that's progress. The dogs would come with us - Chase literally ran in circles about 4 times with excitement when she'd see you come through the door with running gear and a baseball cap - she knew the game! Then the terriers would disappear into the field of alfalfa and somehow transform into graceful leaping animals - you'd see a head appear every now and then and the trail they left behind but that was it!
We shopped a bit, cooked a bit, enjoyed other people's cooking, we ate out on the porch overlooking the mountains, discovered a fondness for dark chocolate (damn you chocolate!), played pool until Jimmy couldn't afford to play against us anymore! Enjoyed seeing the Mackay-Smith side of the family again. Especially enjoyed Juliet's cookie smush. If you should ever pass through the area, make sure to visit the Locke Store in Millwood Virginia, and ask for some cookie smuch!
In summary life on the farm was good. Jimmy and Emily have done something wonderful with the space there. If anyone would like to donate to the pool fund please contact me for details...but other than having a pool (and that's only Emily being a perfectionist!), this place is perr-fect! Thanks Yanks xx