Squirrels, Soggy Boots and Dead Presidents.

Washing my face in Shenandoah National park

All 169 metres of the Washington Mermorial...

I've survived the week so i assume I will do okay from here on in! I have been doing and seeing and hearing so so much and at times it seems pretty overwhelming but I will try to describe some of it. These past few days I have been down to Washington DC to see some of the more touristy type stuff then went hiking in Shenandoah (For you kiwi's who, like me, will never say this right... its pronounced Shannon-dough-ah) national park for a few days. DC was a cool experience, I hate being labelled as a tourist but it was pretty fun to be one just for a few hours. We took the metro in and walked around the mall (another translation... Mall means a grassy strip, not a shopping complex) to see the monuments and reflecting pool, which wasn't reflecting because they were doing maintenance! Checked out the museum of natural history, and saw dinosaurs! But I have to say one of the best moments of the day was feeding this crazy little tame squirrel Cheetos from my hand...amazing.
Then the next couple days we hiked into Shenandoah national park and dissapeared into the wilderness for a while. I was hoping so much to see a bear but I guess that will have to wait till another time....
BUT I saw some incredible creatures that are semi common round here but I thought were freakin awesome... like deer (cute bambi ones, not boring NZ ones) chipmunks, squirrels, cardinals, blue jays, wood peckers, bunny rabbits, giant millipedes...
Something that was very different to tramping at home thought is that everything has to be done considering the bears that live in the park. For instance, we had to cook and eat far away from the tents, not leave food lying around on the ground and tie the bag that had any food, deoderant, smelly anything, up in a tree far away from the tents...so that was a pretty different experience.
I went with Kiri, Brian and their friend Lisa, which made for a super educational trip because Kiri is an ecologist (plant expert) Brian is a entomologist (bug expert) and Lisa is an ornithologist (bird expert) so there was Latin words and scientific names and taxonomy refrences flying all over the place! Was fun though, I enjoyed seeing all of that stuff in a way I havent before.
We were planning on going for two nights, but the first night it rained all night the most of the next day so everything was wet and we were all cold and soggy so we decided to walk out all the way the second day. After a quick wet dinner under a tree, we donned head torches and wet packs and tramped out to the car in the dark....and went to Brian's parents place for a spa!