A 30th Birthday Celebration for the Books: Hiking in Breakneck Ridge

Oh hey, Hudson River on a gorgeous, sunny day!

Hey friends!

So someone (ahem, me) just had a birthday, and it was a big one. That’s right, the big 3-0! So in honor of getting older, I decided to do something to make me feel younger–go on a 3-mile long, rock-climbing hike.

The place we picked was Breakneck Ridge in the Cold Spring area. It’s about 2.8 miles in total, and let me tell you — it is strenuous! 

Holy rock climbing!

I have some amazing friends who agreed to go on this hike with me!

Thanks for going along with my crazy idea, gang!

We all packed some food (and my husband packed a 3 liter bag of boxed wine to carry the entire way … what a husband!) and drinks and sunscreen and took off for the day. I would say it took us about 4 1/2 hours to hike it, but that included about an hour stop for a picnic at the top.

A tasty assortment of goodies, including homemade baked cookies by a good friend from college and Trader Joe’s brownies with a birthday candle from a former co-worker.

The 3-liter bag of wine that Chris took out of the box of wine he purchased, which he carried the entire duration of the hike. That’s my man.

There were many points of the hike that provided awesome and amazing overlooks of the Hudson, and it was the perfect day to hike—sunny and in the low 50s. Here’s a little bit of what we saw:

We envisioned this point being somewhere near the end. It was not.

And so, we all made it through, all the way to the end, and I was so proud of everyone…

After the hike, before catching the train back to the city, we stopped at the Cold Spring Depot (which is walking distance to the train stop) for beers:

And so that’s about it, my friends. I had such an amazing time. It felt nice to be outside, we had an amazing group with us and I’d recommend this hike for anyone who’s game for some awesome, strenuous rock climbing.

One other word of note: If you’re planning on catching the train from New York City to Breakneck Ridge, I’m told you can alert the conductor to the fact that you want to get off at Breakneck, and that sometimes they’ll stop there for you (otherwise there are only two stops directly at Breakneck a day). We thought we’d get off at Cold Spring and walk to the trail, but it turns out that’s about a 4+ mile walk. We were not game to do that before even starting the hike, so we had parts of our gang who were driving pick us up. Just something to think about.

Bis bald, friends! Off to London week after next! My lovely in-laws have purchased Les Miserables tickets for us for Friday night when we get there. I love London theater, and I’ve never seen Les Mis, so I’m really looking forward to this!

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Back in the Borough: A Beautiful, Snowy Central Park

Hi friends,

So we’ve pretty much dug ourselves out of snowstorm Nemo 2013 around here. Yesterday morning Chris and I took a snowy stroll to Central Park, and you know I couldn’t help but snap some photos along the way …

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Where the Weather Was Good…

A lovely fall day at a winery in Virginia.

Hey friends,

So back in New York City things are … not so good. I mean, for myself and Chris–we’re pretty lucky. We never lost power or internet, our apartment was never flooded and things have pretty much gone on as usual. However, less than a few miles away we know things are much, much different. My heart just pours out to everyone who has lost friends and loved ones, valued possessions or entire homes. It’s just so horrible. Climate change–it’s really something to think about, isn’t it?

Chris has been working from home this whole week since the power is out at his office, but they hope to return on Monday. The New York City marathon, as of right now, will still happen Sunday and word on the street is the power will back on for everyone in Manhattan by Saturday evening.

In an effort to starting returning all things to normal, I thought I’d go ahead and blog about last weekend, when we were having a blast at JMU homecoming in Virginia.

So here’s to happy, warm weather memories …

Last Friday Chris and I set off to La Guardia to pick up our rental car at around 6:30 in the morning. We had about a 6 hour drive ahead of us to Stanley, Virginia, and we were eager to get started. Since we couldn’t check in to our log cabin (which was ahhhhmazing, by the way! More on that later!), the plan was for all of us to meet up at a local winery I had found, Wisteria, which was about a 10 minute drive away from where we’d be staying.

Chris, my cousin Alyssa, her boyfriend Jesse and myself were the first to arrive at the winery, and it was exactly as I would have wanted it to be. Cute. Charming. Low-key. Tasty wine. The owners–a retired husband and wife–opened the winery a few years back. Their two dogs, chickens, roosters and flock of sheep live on the property (which you know I loved), as well.

After our wine tasting ($12 per person for a tasting of 12 wines and a glass…gotta love VA!), we all congregated on a bench outside with some purchased bottles to take in the scenery and chat:

After our cute little vineyard tour, we all hopped in our cars and headed off to the cabin. Of course I had seen the photos on the website, and I had verified (multiple times) that the cabin we were getting was the one in the photos, but still, you can never be sure.

But let me tell you, my friends, we were not disappointed:

Our beer-stocked fridge. We had food, too. Somewhere.

Our game room.

Our fire pit area, which Chris was obsessed with.

Cabin view from the fire pit.

The hot tub in the main bedroom.

The 8-person hot tub on the porch. Of course when we put 8 people in it, it overflowed just a bit. But you know, no big deal.

One view of our wrap-around porch.

The awesome grill, which we only used once.

The other side of our porch, with the adorable wooden rocking chairs and cute little Checkers table.

The dining room.

The kitchen in use!

The living room.

Living room from the top floor balcony. There were three floors to the house, and 5 bedrooms total.

The top floor living room.

One of the bedrooms on the top floor.

Saturday morning breakfast of bagels, eggs, bacon and mimosas.

Our time at the cabin was mostly spent eating (we all took turns cooking), drinking, watching football, playing games in the game room, building fires in the fire pit, chilling in the hot tub (although somehow we only managed to do that Friday night) and playing beer pong and cards. It was an amazing time.

And on Saturday, Chris, Alyssa, Jesse and I headed to the JMU campus to catch the JMU football game and tailgate a bit.

They say this statue of James Madison is built to his actual height. What a cute little shorty.

Me and Carla, my freshman year roommate.

Now I hadn’t been back to the stadium since my first year out of school, but I knew they had done some remodeling. It was actually pretty impressive (as was our defeat to Georgia State!):

Purple-ing Out!

After the game we went to the book store and took a quick walk around campus, then headed back to the cabin, where we ate delicious shrimp fajitas, made a fire, played beer pong and cards, and where my sister and her friend Jenna had made a birthday cookie cake for Chris, whose birthday was last week.

On Sunday we were all pretty eager to head back to our homes as early as possible, since we all knew the storm was brewin’. So that was about it–our Virginia weekend in a nutshell. It was really fun, and I’d recommend this cabin to anyone looking for a quiet little retreat in the woods.

A word of caution though: if you do stay here, beware that the firewood bundles are $5 per bundle to use. Don’t go ahead and use them all up on the first night assuming they are free. Like Chris did.

Bis bald, friends! And if you were in any way affected by the storm, we’re thinking and praying for you!

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Back In the Borough: The Hurricane’s A Comin’!

Hurricane Sandy

Hey guys,

So we’re back from our Virginia weekend, and it was awesome! Seriously–the cabin was amazing, the game was so fun, tailgating was fantastic…it was all great.

So I’m going to do a big update on the awesomeness of Virginia, and this cabin, ASAP, but for now, we’re pretty much just getting ready for the biggest news of the day–Hurricane Sandy. We drove back yesterday from Virginia and didn’t get in until around 6 p.m., at which point the stores were pretty much cleaned out. We were able to get some water and pasta and cat food and toilet paper though … so let’s hope that holds out!

Wish us luck–and I’ll be back after the storm!

Bis bald, friends!

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