a better Monday

A couple of weeks ago I suddenly realized that my weekends in Fall were almost totally booked, but I hadn't made time for camping in the mountains, which is an autumn must for me. So I ditched work one day and spent Sunday and Monday here:

with these guys:

We saw more deer than I could count:

We also ran into a full-grown black bear in the woods in the dark on the trail back to our tent:
{image unavailable due to I was walking too fast in the opposite direction and forget to take out my camera}

For breakfast we had sausages slow-roasted over charcoal and Graham crackers with apple butter I had bought for a little roadside stand on the way out (and homemade apple cider from the same stand):

(Aaron is so proud of the new camp sporks we bought just for the occasion.)

We hiked, just a teensy bit:

And took our sweet time getting back into the city. We stopped at a diner on the highway that we always see and I've always wanted to try:

(the Double Cheeseburger was good, the milkshake was okay, but Jared tells me the buffalo burger is definitely NOT worth the money.)

It's almost Fall in Shenandoah. Probably next weekend will be breathtaking:

It's not like I'm having a particularly bad Monday right now. It's just that, how can you beat that?