Shenandoah's Skyline Sunrise

I hit it hard the past 24 hours with "wildlifin" and hiking.  It was my time to go to the mountains of Shenandoah National Park to help with some biologists with their projects.  This was one of those things that I will probably only do in my early 20's, as I was driving at 3 A.M. to go see animals 2 hours away on a whim chance that I might to get to see some really cool stuff with others.

We saw all kinds of stuff (more on that in a later post!).

After a bit of bear excitement and mammal projects, I had about 45 minutes of "me time" on Skyline Drive that happened to coincide with the sunrise.   This was my break time, and I had to do something cool, right?

I sat on one of the rocky overlook walls and awaited the first rays of sun. Not long after, some other young twenty-somethings came up and joined me on the perch.

I was wearing a blaze orange hat with camo trim and they were wearing their Bob Marley t-shirts with their finest dreadlocks.  The Grateful Dead was playing on their radio and I was playing Little Big Town, both probably a little bit too loud.

We didn't care. 

All that mattered was that we were there, under that first ray of sun. 

A few words about where we came from were exchanged and then silence. Not at all an awkward silence, but rather one that was not only necessary for our enjoyment, but also peaceful.

The sun's light made its morning debut with all kinds of dark reds and purples.  It rose higher until yellows appeared.

Eventually, the sun rose above the horizon.  All of us "young twenty-somethings" squinted as it got too high to enjoy.

We looked at each other, smiled and talked about how great that was.

Some handshakes were given and both parties went opposite ways down Skyline Drive.

Kayak Camera: Trip 2

Wow, I'm beat.  I've basically spent the whole day either working on the river, kayaking for fun alone, or kayaking with friends.  The camera-traps have hopefully been working hard lately, so I have taken my mind off of most of them for the past day or two.  Today was dedicated to the Potomac River.

The wee hours of the morning have been calling my name lately.  I was up and at it at 5:30 in the morning to see the sunrise on the river while on a kayak.

I hit the water just as the sun had come up over a ridge on the Maryland side of the Potomac River.  There was another man taking out a nice bass boat nearby so I said hello and paddled onward.

The point of getting out this early was to  not only see the sun rise over the river, but to just relax alone before the work day started. This sunrise just happened to be the earliest of all sunrises because of it being the day of the summer solstice.

I completed 12 laps from Virginia to Maryland and back and paddled a little upriver to an island to take a short break.

Silt and dirt were still in the river from rains a few days ago, but the river was flowing at a decent pace.  Cormorants, great blue herons, bald eagles, baltimore orioles, and mergansers were doing their usual calls and activities at this time.

Common mergansers showing their summer colors:  a rusty-reddish head and a gray body

I drifted and paddled back to the Virginia shore where I was greeted by a raccoon messing around with some leftovers in a trash can near the boat ramp.  Clapping didn't make it budge so I got a little closer and yelled at it.  It ran up a tree and gave me a few glares before coming down and disappearing into the woods.