I arrived at Shenandoah National Park on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, I was really exhausted. The bachelorette weekend was fun, but I needed time to recover. I wanted to do a longer hike the next day and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it if I spent the last of my energy hiking on Wednesday. So I stayed at my Airbnb. I spent the morning getting ChatGPT to help me figure out the right combination of tax gains harvesting and Traditional 401(k) to Roth conversion to do. Since I won’t have any income this year, it’s the perfect time to do all this and owe minimal taxes. And yes, I find figuring all this out fun and restful. My Airbnb had a nice screened in porch, so I also spent a lot of time out there reading.

On Thursday morning, I felt ready for my hike. I hiked Old Rag Mountain. There are various ways you can hike it, depending on how long you want to hike and how much elevation gain you want. I chose the shortest way. It was 5.6 miles and had an elevation gain of 1,700 feet. That’s not a lot for some people, but it’s more than I usually do, so it was a challenge. I made it! The view from the top was beautiful. I stayed up there for a while and had the summit to myself. Well, I shared it with a bunch of spotted lanternflies, which I later learned are invasive species and I should have killed, but I was the only human there.

When I was up there, the view reminded me of my time in Asheville. I later found out that Shenandoah is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which explains why I was reminded of Asheville. Those are the same mountains I saw in February. The first ones I saw on my road trip and the ones that started making me realize that I love the mountains.

Shenandoah National Park is a long and thin park. Skyline Drive is the road that spans the entire park, north to south. Apparently, it was specifically designed to be the main attraction of the park and the lookouts were built at strategic locations. I drove the northern third of Skyline Drive after hiking Old Rag. Some of the lookout points are overgrown with trees, so you can’t see much, but it was still a beautiful drive.

On Friday, I drove to Washington, D.C. to see my friend Paola for the weekend. Since it was a short drive and Paola was at a conference all day, I spent the day at Shenandoah. I drove the rest of Skyline Drive, stopping at a bunch of lookout points and doing a few short hikes along the way. Unfortunately, it was rainy and foggy, so I saw fog for most of the day. But towards the end of my drive, the sky cleared up and I was able to see the views from my third hike and the last few lookouts.

When I reached the southernmost point of the park, I headed to D.C. On my way there, I kept wondering what state license plate people there have. I assumed there is a D.C. plate and I was right. It’s kind of strange though. I’m in a city, but I’m not in any state and only people in this one city have a Washington, D.C. license plate. And then I thought that I wouldn’t have a state to add on my blog post title. D.C. is sort of like the state since it comes after a comma, but not really. And if D.C. is the state, then the city is Washington, which is also a state. Why did they have to make this all so confusing? That’s a glimpse into some of the ridiculous thoughts I have as I’m driving. Anyway, I made it safely to D.C. and have been having fun here the past couple of days.