Laurel Hill State Park Trip: 58 Nights: 191-193 Last weekend was the annual Aliner Ascape rally, which has settled at Laurel Hill State Park near Somerset, PA. We missed last year when my career blew up 3 weeks before the camp out, so it was great to get back this year to see old friends and a make new ones. The...

Teddy’s Last Selfie Teddy Ballgame, aka Ted, aka Teddy, aka Theodore J. Dog, crossed the rainbow bridge yesterday. We found Teddy at Petsmart where the Orange County Humane Society was running an adoption event in 2017. One of our senior dogs had recently passed on and the other was really struggling without her...

Sunday Steamy Sunday I was supposed to get up and go birding this morning, but it was going to be 87F (28C) and very humid by the time we finished, so I'm here blogging from the comfort of my air-conditioned home instead. We planned on heading into Richmond for Sailfest today, but that same weather issue is making...

Weekend at Loft Mountain Campground Trip: 57 Nights: 189-190 It was 92F (32C) in RVA. It was 75C (23C) and breezy two hours away in Shenandoah National Park. We chose wisely. It was a very chill weekend. We arrived around 430 PM on Friday, and after setting up camp, we did some birding in the campground. Dinner was...

Memorial Day Staycation We should have been camping this weekend. The weather had other ideas. All of Virginia is in a moderate to severe drought, but of course Memorial Day weekend was a washout. I cancelled camping plans last week, and instead we did a local staycation. On Friday, we had dinner at our favorite...

Viral on LinkedIn again I went viral on LinkedIn again. Previously.

Birding at Dorey Park It's difficult to photograph birds at all times; it's especially difficult when they mostly live in the leaves. I did get this one decent shot this morning of a brown thrasher. We saw 33 species, including my best-ever look at a Great Crested Flycatcher. There were two examining a potential...

Camping at Machicomoco State Park Trip: 56 Nights: 187-188 And the 2026 camping season has started. We spent the weekend at Machicomoco State Park near Gloucester, VA. It's only a 70-minute drive from home. Until a few weeks ago it was Virginia's newest state park, as it opened in 2021. It is dedicated to the...

County Roads, Take Me Home My phone served up a cover version of this John Denver classic as I was chauffeuring my wife around yesterday. Something about the lyric hit me in a way that I'd never noticed before. Almost Heaven, West Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River Life is old there, older than the...