Texas Lou

Archive for the ‘Outdoors’ Category

I love this sign!

It’s almost as good as “We don’t swim in your toilet, so don’t pee in our pool!”

I’m laying on the beach AND I got to sleep till noon today! I haven’t done that since college!

As you can see from the picture, the weather is perfect and the beach is beautiful!

Well it’s time to forget about technology and enjoy the beach!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and relaxing weekend!

There’s no place I love more than the beach.  I want to retire there one day so that I can hear the sound of the ocean when I wake up every morning and when I go to sleep every night.  I love to feel the sand between my toes, the sun on my skin, the wind in my hair, and the salt water all around me.

I truly believe the beach can make anything better.

I’m so excited to be spending a 3 day weekend at the beach with my girls.

Outer Banks, here I come!

P.S.  I still have lots to tell about my Memorial Day trip to Texas and my cousin’s wedding, but it’s been a short and busy week and it will have to wait until next time.

Last night, I attended my weekly softball game with my work team, the VGT Lucky 7’s.  When you put a bunch of software engineers, quality assurance engineers, and software project managers together with a bunch of softballs and bats, the outcome is not always so great.  As a matter of fact, the VGT Lucky 7’s have a history of being one of the worst teams in the league.

But not yesterday!  Yesterday, we played an AMAZING game.  We were down by two, and came back in the final inning to take the lead by 5 points.  I made 2 runs!  It was the first time I’d ever made it all around the bases and back to home in the 2 seasons I have been playing softball!  What an awesome feeling it was to score a run AND win a game!  I guess this is why they say sports are good for one’s self esteem!

Back in November, a good friend convinced me to run the Yuengling Shamrock Half Marathon.  At first, I didn’t even give it a thought as I had no desire or faith in my ability to run 13 miles.  I can’t remember why, but I did give it a second thought.  I’m not sure what made me change my mind…maybe the realization that all runners were greeted at the finish line with free beer.  I decided to go for it and that began the 5 months of training and injuries I endured to get to where I am now.  It was also the start of my new love for outdoor running.

Before beginning to train for the half marathon, I preferred running inside on the treadmill where air conditioning and television were my good friends.  The farthest I had ever run outside had been the Charlottesville Women’s 4 Miler, which both times I had to walk a great deal of .   But now I find running inside pretty boring without the constantly changing scenery, and I can run 4 miles without stopping or walking pretty easily.

Yesterday, I ran my first half marathon and am so proud of myself today!  The day couldn’t have been more perfect!  The race was in beautiful Virginia beach.  It was a glorious, sunny day with temperatures in the 60s to 70s.  I ran most of the 13.1 miles with my friend Dana, but had to slow down a bit during the last 4 miles of the race due to an increasing need to go to the bathroom.  The race ended on the Virgina Beach Boardwalk where I crossed the finish line as they called out my name.  As I slowly wandered past the crowds of people, volunteers showered me with gifts:  a medal, a t-shirt, a hat, water, and snacks.  The rest of the day was filled with friends, FREE BEER, food, fun, and the sun on the beach.  I met old friends and new friends and had a blast!  Yuengling sure does know how to put on an after-party!

Even though everything about the day was wonderful, the best thing was knowing that I had accomplished my goal!

Here are my stats:

I definitely plan on running it again next year!

Friday, February 12th, I drove to Virginia Beach with three friends from work to compete in the Virginia is for Lovers 14K.

We were all a bit worried as the weather forecast was calling for a 90% chance of snow.  However, I consider us to be lucky that the race wasn’t canceled and the snow didn’t begin until halfway through the 8.68 mile run.

This race was part of our training for the Yuengling Shamrock Half Marathon that we are running in March.  All in all, the race went well.  Aside from the sideways snow and the 20 mph wind that started around the 5th mile, it was a fun race!

My stats were as follows:

After the race, we got to enjoy free Yuengling and burritos at the after party.  Despite the cold weather and snow, it was a pretty awesome experience and I can’t wait to do it again next year!

This was a beautiful evening, November 15, 2009, and I wanted to share it:

Living in Charlottesville provides quite a few lovely sites to help one become in tune with nature.  When I first moved to the Commonwealth, I was quite intimidated by the endless landscape of mountains and trees accompanying all roads and stretches of highway.  Born and raised a city gal, I was used to having numerous gas stations, restaurants, and shopping centers accompany me along my rides.  Being in Charlottesville and driving through the countryside for hours without seeing a single sign that the human race existed made me feel pretty lonely.  However, now I really do enjoy making my way from Charlottesville to Richmond with a only nature as my passenger. 

Besides the Blue Ridge Mountains, the occasional roadside grazing deer, and the trees often coated in white snow in the winter, Charlottesville is home to many hot air balloons and their pilots.  On most clear and sunny days in the Fall or Spring, you can catch a glimpse of a beautifully and brightly colored hot air balloon sailing through the sky on your way to and from work.  People often take them up to watch the sunrise or sunset so the timing is perfect to watch them on my drive to work or home from work. 

Even though my drive to and from work is only 30 minutes, I still get bored (probably because my commute at my former job was only about 5 minutes).  So the hot air balloons provide a nice background as I impatiently make my way through what small-town Charlottesville residents call traffic.  Getting to see these balloons sure beats the hell out of talk-radio!  I was lucky enough to have my camera to snap some great shots of the hot air balloons this fall.

I’m so glad that autumn is finally almost here! 

One thing that I have learned to appreciate about living on the East Coast is the beautiful weather and scenery that takes over between September and November.  Leaves changing colors and the weather getting colder is something I rarely got to experience growing up in southern Texas.  Now that I live in central Virginia, I can’t get enough of it!

I love taking pictures of the leaves changing colors from bright greens to various hues of orange, brown, yellow, and red.  I love getting to bundle up in sweaters and fleece and sit by a bonfire and drink apple cider.  And I love all of the fall festivals that take place during this time of year.  The Graves Mountain Apple Harvest Festival, the Carter Mountain Orchard Apple Harvest Festival, and the Fall Fiber Festival and Montpelier Sheep Dog Trials are just a few that I plan on attending!

The next couple of months are sure to be filled with lots of fun and plenty of pictures.

Saturday afternoon, I spent the day with a couple of friends at Hill Top Berry Farm and Winery in Nelson County, Virginia.  We did a tasting of the winery’s fruit wines and honey meads.  If you’re ever in the area, I highly recommend stopping by as the vineyard was definitely one of the more unique Virginia wineries that I have been to. 

They were sold out of many of the wines that I wanted to buy, but I did find 3 that I settled on:  the Raspberry Melomel, Strawberry Melomel, and the Pyment (made of grapes and honey mead).

After our wine tasting, we had a picnic lunch on the porch and then picked blackberries.  Hill Top offers a better deal on blackberries in both quality and quantity than the farmer’s market or the grocery store.  Plus you get to choose each and every blackberry that you want to buy.

I was hoping to make blackberry wine, but since I just started a batch of concord grap wine, I’ll probably just stick to blackberry preserves.