The Most Asked Question to date, namely “Which park will you go to first?” has been answered.

Later this month, I will be driving to Baltimore MD to drop my son off at college, and this will officially begin the “Empty Nest” stage of my life. Or so they tell me. Either way, it’s a big step. The timing of the trip has him moving in on a Wednesday afternoon and me leaving on Thursday mid-day. It’s just before Labor Day weekend, so I have a couple of days where I could go do a thing since I’m already out in the world.

My mom lives in Virginia, and I thought about tacking on a visit to see her, but that would leave me with a 10-hour drive home at the end and that sounds not super fun. Then suddenly it hit me – Shenandoah National Park is just 75 miles west of Washington DC. It’s not exactly on my way home, but it’s not far off the path. It’s about a 3.5 hour drive from where my mom lives. We could meet at the park, see each other outside the busy-ness of our daily lives, and get the Odyssey underway. Definitely a win-win scenario, which is absolutely my favorite kind of scenario.

She said yes! Miraculously, she didn’t have anything already planned for that weekend, so we are on!! The general plan that we made up on the spot is to stay two nights in the park, drive some or all of Skyline Drive, and do a couple of easy hikes. We picked those things because it’s pretty much all I know about Shenandoah right this minute. More details TBD soon.

I think it’s truly awesome that I am going to start this project with just my mom. There’s something really appropriate-feeling about that. We are both busy solo practitioners in our own Chiropractic offices and neither of us gets a lot of down time, so one-on-one time together that’s not during a huge family event is really special. We rarely get to spend some time together, just the two of us, doing something new and interesting. She will probably shred me on the hiking front, since her favorite activity is climbing huge trees and ropes courses at her local Outdoor Adventure Park. She just turned 76 and she’s got biceps I’m jealous of. She can climb a 20-foot rope ladder with rungs 3 feet apart. It’ll probably be a challenge to keep up with her, but I do love a challenge.

Now it’s time to do some research and assess my current gear situation – a good pair of hiking boots is definitely going to be in order. And maps. I *love* maps.