of course it was cold in florida

So I was in Florida two weeks ago for work and ending my four conferences in four weeks. So I was tired and just couldn't wait to be home! But I was looking forward to some sunshine as I was going to Florida after my cold cities in Indiana, Ohio and New York, but noooope, mother nature had other plans in store. When I was there (the last week of March) it was COLD. Tuesday was a high of 61 and it was windy, the low on Wednesday was in the 30s - it was technically warmers in the morning in DC.  But I took advantage on Tuesday to travel to a National Park! I went to Canaveral National Seashore which is about an hour from Orlando. And despite the chilly weather I did take a walk on the beach and enjoyed the sunshine!

National Park # 66! Woooooooo :)

Walking down onto the beach!

Nothing I love more!

So then I had a few fun filled days of conference life. Orlando was a bit crazy - so it made for a long few days. I just kept counting down until Sunday! So since the spring set of conferences is ending soon we celebrated Easter with a staff lunch out! All decked out in our Easter gear - we had a staff Easter egg hunt before we left!

Ladies lunch in Orlando - the whole staff this week was female!

Heather - my PC partner and I in our Easter bonnets!

So I flew back home on Monday morning and it was SO nice to be home! I relaxed and cleaned, laundry/all the fun things after being gone for 4 weeks. And then on Tuesday the boy and I went for a hike - it was a bit chilly but just great to get outside.

Gorgeous views of Virginia - the Shenandoah mountains are in the background

The rest of the week was uneventful - I was in the office 3 days this week. It was kinda crazy, but so nice to know that at 5pm I was done for the day! I'm looking forward to the next few months of just being in the office prepping for the summer. I enjoyed catching up on tv and just enjoying some quiet nights in. Friday night though I headed into the district to get my Cherry Blossom 10 miler bib for race day on Sunday! It was a gorgeous evening to be out and about and walking along the mall. 

This morning Patricia and I went on an adventure to MD so I could add a few more National Parks to my list. We went to Catocin Mountain Park and Monocacy Battlefield.

My trademark photo with signs! National Park # 67!

Patricia and I after a little frolic through the woods!

Pretty views!

Catocin has a neat history - FDR originally had the CCC and other WPA projects done here during the Depression and created a presidential retreat here. So somewhere in the park is Camp David! And then we drove a few miles away to Monocacy and learned all about this important battle in 1864!

July 1864 - Battle of Monocacy in MD

So now I'm off to bed, getting up super early tomorrow for the Cherry Blossom 10 miler! Wooo! I'm excited, though I haven't been running much. Hoping the Cherry Blossom's have bloomed more since I saw them on Friday - the cold weather has kept them from blooming! How have your last few weeks been?

one year

the day of surgery

so a year ago i was living in charleston and enjoying my weekly kickball game when i was running and ended up tearing my right ACL. yup - i tore my ACL playing kickball. and it was almost deja-vu. 9 years prior i tore my left ACL playing field hockey.

it took me a while to realize but 10 years ago tearing my ACL was one of the best things that happened to me. because of my injury i ended up finding a sport in college i loved, and through rowing i was able to gain so much confidence and meet some amazing women who were my rocks in college and i still  consider these women some of my closest friends. so only a year after my second injury i'm seeing the blessing in disguise much sooner. by being in nj longer i was able to see some friends more and got to help twin with wedding planning and got to spend more time with my nj zetas! but i think the biggest thing was i ended up going back to working conferences and in august i ended up getting a full time position and moving to virginia! i'm a big believer in things happening for a reason - so while at the time it really screwed up a lot it is good to see the puzzle pieces starting to come together.

my hey lets see how swollen i am

looking better!

4 knee braces!

double knee braces!

finally allowed to hike! june 2012

 and at times it was a rough recovery - had some pt issues and a lot of hassle with insurance. i hated not being able to do things and having to be so slow.  i wasn't allowed to start running until april. but i've worked hard to get myself back into shape and this weekend i'm running 13.1 miles through the streets of philly! so i'm excited to see how everything continues to turn out but i can say tearing both of my ACLs has taught me a lot about myself and that sometimes you need to experience something kinda shitty to figure everything out. and hopefully it will all make sense one day!

so i'm ready to rock out to 13.1 miles on sunday with my knee brace along with me!

shenandoah

it has been a great week! lots of fun going on here and another week with a national park visit! so let's have fun with the pictures from my adventure to shenandoah national park with patricia & mary jo on saturday!

me and my usual national park sign!

pretty views from the shenandoahs in virginia! i love the mountains!

patricia, mary jo and i - <3 br="br">

i just brought them on their first appalachian trail experience!!

loving the appalachian trail - and yes, mj is wearing the blanket as a cape

decided we needed to do some glamour shots! we had wayyy to much fun taking crazy pictures! we think a modeling career is in our future...

yay pretty trees! 

making patricia love the national park system!

mary jo & patricia - we all met summer 2009

another one of the 3 of us!

there are no words for this photo - this was where the photo shoot got crazy!

being silly - apparently my face is too small...

mj and i - pretty mountains!!

yup - we're crazy!

 feeding me an apple on the pocketknife - 

 feeding patricia on the pocketknife - yup, we're classy in the woods!

so we had a full day of chatting about life and everything - especially since it was about a 12 hour journey! they met me at 9:30 and we didn't get back until close to 9pm! took a lot of funny photos and just laughed. this friendship is one that makes me smile because we are so different but it works. i love that we all live close so we can have more of these random adventures! 

and other fun things last week:

-went to founders day for zeta and had a fun dinner with the nova ladies!

-patricia came over for dinner and it was a funny evening

-went on a date with a boy who had the same name as me, sooo weird! erin lynn/aaron lynn didn't know we had the middle name in common

-saw my parents & little brother friday night as they were in maryland looking at colleges

- went to a coworkers housewarming party saturday night

- have been meeting up with my friend linds to go running in the morning - today we did 6 miles!

- was again disappointed by my football team as they lost to the pats in ot! i hate sanchez!

- came in 3rd in trivia with some coworkers/friends

what was your weekend highlight? 

more new jersey

   it was a busy busy last few days in nj! saturday was twin's wedding shower. it was a wonderful shower and it was great to see her whole family and meet most of her cousins and everyone. it all went smoothly and it was so relaxed. her mom & sister were wonderful as always and i can't wait until her wedding on august 18th! it is going to be so much fun! 

twin & i at her shower

visitors center

and since i've gotten my national park passport back in april ive been trying to get as many stamps as possible. i've had a goal to go to all 390 sites administered by the national park service and this is just making it more fun. so there are a few national park sites close to where i grew up and a few i've been to multiple times while others have been missed. so a few years ago i went to morristown and the washington headquarters national historic site - gw spent a winter during the revolutionary war here. and the continental army stayed at jockey hollow a few miles away so saturday after twin's shower i went to jockey hollow and got some stamps and learned about the harsh winter of 1779-1780 for the army. there is a ton of revolutionary war history by where i grew up and i have a goal to go see more of it!

replica cabins at jockey hollow

but my big fun this weekend was on sunday! twin and i made plans last week to go hiking on sunday with andy. we decided to go to my favorite area - the delaware water gap. which is also a national recreation area! (so more stamps!!) and i love to hike here and the area is just so pretty. and the hike we did goes to my favorite place in nj - the top of mt. tammany! we decided to do a combined hike and do mt. tammany and then go up to sunfish pond so in total we hiked 11.5 miles. and yes it was the most physical thing i've done since november 14th when i broke myself. but hey it made me feel a little more confident that i can run a half this fall because hiking 11.5 miles is similar to running 13.1 right? but it was a wonderful day out in the mountains with my best friend and her fiance and my favorite place! and my knee felt good - especially with wearing my brace for 11.5 miles and i wore the sleeve for the first time to see if it would reduce rubbing and it did which was nice. but taking it off when we got to the car was magical! but an absolutely wonderful day hiking!

with my national park passport excited about my delaware water gap stamp and the appalachian trail stamp as it runs through the area too! really i was ecstatic about the appalachian trail stamp!

view from the summit of mt. tammany- hello delaware river and pennsylvania on the other side!

heather & andy - he proposed on mt. tammany!

twin & i -  and my super sexy knee brace! 

sunfish pond - a glacial pond along the appalachian trail - it is a historic landmark!

so i'm now in the philly airport waiting for my flight back to charleston! yay! i'm going back! but only for 40 hours. i get in monday at noon and i'm flying out wednesday morning at 6am for my next conference which is in philly. i know - i just need to go home for a few hours, sleep twice in my own bed, switch clothes and everything. i am so excited! plus my camping gear needs to stop traveling around the country. but it is going to be a crazy week - my second  interview last week went well for school 1 so keep your fingers crossed! i should know in a few days about it. but i have an interview at school 2 on thursday morning. so i'm getting to philly wednesday morning - going to training because it is a new conference for me, driving home wednesday night (good thing i'm closeish to philly), interview thursday am, and then directly to philly for the conference where i'll be working 8am-11pm thursday to sunday. then flying back to charleston sunday night!

 hope you have a good week!

rocky mountain national park

earlier this week i went camping for 3 days in rocky mountain national park in nothern colorado! i had just finished working a conference in denver and after my last trip to denver in april i was so excited to be coming back to colorado because i immediately knew i wanted to go camping in the mountains! so my first task was to see if my tent & sleeping bag along with other camping gear would fit in my large suitcase. and the day of happiness was when they did so i knew i could start looking into campgrounds and start making this trip a reality!

eating buffalo & elk

so i worked denver last thursday to sunday and then sunday night went to an amazing steakhouse in denver for some elk! now i'm kinda a picky eater - i used to be ridiculously picky. like wouldn't even try something new. but in the last few years i've become more open to trying food - especially as i travel. so when one of my coworkers heard about this place that served elk from one of our students and we asked the hotel about the restaurant we knew we had to try it! so catherine, kristen & i went to try it out. so we get there and there are taxidermy animals everywhere we knew it was going to be awesome. so we were told about the special of 4oz of both elk & buffalo steak and i knew that was what i was going to try. i was kinda nervous but i figured why not. and everything was amazing and our server was awesome! i really liked the elk! it had a blackberry sauce with it and it had an amazing flavor! the buffalo was good but i think i would have liked it if it was done a little more - it was medium but a little too pink for me. but still good! so i was super proud of myself for trying the new food!

at buckhorn exchange!

so monday morning i headed to the airport to get my rental car and i was off to the mountains! soooooooo exciting to be driving closer & closer to the rockies! i arrived in estes park (the town outside the national park) around 1 and went to get some groceries when i received a phone call that totally made my day! buuut i did have to spend a few extra hours around estes park making other phone calls and spent an hour on the phone with united changing my flights and getting everything sorted. so i finally get to the park around 3pm and went to the campground where i was staying in the park and set up my campsite and then went off to explore!

woooooooooooooooooo! i <3 national parks!

pretty views around sheep lake - monday afternoon

i didn't have too much time on monday afternoon as the devils hockey playoff game 6 was on at 6pm. so i wanted to be back in town to watch  it! but i did drive on the main park road and saw some beautiful sites to get my soooooo excited for tuesday! i also stopped at the visitors center to get some ideas of good hikes to do on tuesday and the must sees! game 6 was kinda disappointing as the devils lost but they had a great season and the kings had one incredible playoffs!

so i went camping by myself! which was a first for me - but i am so glad i did it. i love to travel alone and it was nice to just be me with nature!

tundra!

highest visitors center

 tuesday i was up early and started off along the trail ridge road (which goes allll through the park and up up the mountains) and was just loving the views i was seeing from every angle. i had a great time except driving was kinda freaking me out once we started getting up on the windy mountain road through the park. there were rarely any walls or barriers for the edge of the roads and just drops down hundreds of feet. freaking out here! but the views were just amazing! loved it! i got out at every view point and took pictures and where i could took a small walk or walked around the trails. and i kept adding clothes because up so high it was sooo cold - in the low 50s and windy! especially above 11,400 feet - which is considered the arctic tundra. aka like alaska or siberia. so it was pretty awesome. i also went to the highest visitors center in the national park system and of course stamped my national park passport 3x while i was in rocky mountain np.

along canyon ridge! 

ELK & elks! my initials are elk and i love that it spells a word!

2 miles above sea level

continental divide

so after going over the continental divide! and i decided to do a small hike near the colorado river (which starts up in the np and then goes down through the grand canyon - so that was kinda cool!) and as i'm along the path i look up and see 2 huge elk eating about 25 feet away. since there was no one there i didn't want to get too close but it was still pretty awesome. and i've wanted to see a moose since i went to acadia in 2010 and when i was told by rangers that the likelyhood of seeing a moose was in the western side of the park. so i made it my mission to see a moose! so i was driving and i see a few cars pulled over on the side of the road and i look and BAM a little moose! just eating along the side of the road and i was sooooooooo excited! i did my i saw a moose dance! and i took a ton of pictures of him. and then i decided to head back towards the east side of the park - so i had to go on the tiny windy mountain roads again. ahhhhh!

MOOSE!!!!!!

but i made it to the bear lake road at a few minutes after 4, which was perfect as they close the road to cars during the day and open it to cars at 4 so i could hike around bear like which was were i was told to hike by the rangers. so i walked around bear lake and then hiked up to nymph lake & emerald lake which was just breathtaking. the mountains and glaciers in the background and it was def one of the prettiest areas of the park. it was also so nice to just be hiking again - around the bear lake area i hiked about 4 miles. and as i turned a corner the people i who were walking down saw me and told me to look the other way and there were 2 elk right there just eating. and giving us dirty looks - and i joked we were ruining his view. so i was in my element during the afternoon and hiking. i finished hiking around 8pm and then headed back to my campsite and pretty much just went to sleep because i decided to go to wyoming on wednesday before heading to the airport to fly to houston.

the elk right along the path!

view along emerald lake!

view i ruined for the elk!

but i am so glad i decided to be slightly crazy according to some people and go camping for a few days between cities and go camping alone. which is an experience i'm glad i did. i needed some erin and nature time. and rocky mountain national park is just absolutely amazing. i love the mountains!

now i'm in the houston airport waiting for my flight to jersey (sunday)- just kidding. it wouldn't post in the houston airport. and i've had one hell of a travel day and i'm now in dulles boarding my flight now  (monday morning). look for that fun post tomorrow!