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Chateau de Chillon
We headed out in the early afternoon to the Château de Chillon, a castle near the town of Montreux on the shore of Lake Geneva. We were originally planning on taking the boat from Montreux but the schedule didn’t work out. We ended up arriving via bus instead. We took the audio tour of the castle and learned quite a few things! Much of which we have already forgotten… Hopefully what we did remember is correct!
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Meadowlark Botanical Gardens
It has been around a month since our last visit to the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Northern Virginia. We headed over in the early afternoon for a walk through the park. As usual, we saw quite a few birds though the swallows were absent. And as usual we saw quite a few flowers!
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Arapahoe Basin
We headed to Arapahoe Basin in the morning and arrived just in time for the 9am opening time. We took the Black Mountain Express chairlift up to mid-mountain and started hiking upwards. The plan was to make it to the new Steilhang Hut but we ended up going all the way to the Snow Plume Refuge.
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Vail
Today, we headed over to Vail to do more high altitude hiking! We headed up one of their two gondolas and hiked to the other one along a route that went a few hundred feet further up before heading back down. We hiked further today than yesterday but it felt easier, likely due to both being about 1,000 feet lower in elevation and being a bit more acclimated to the altitude.
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Keystone
We headed to Keystone Ski Resort today for some high altitude summer hiking and scenery! Like many of the ski areas in the region, Keystone operates a gondola and chairlift up to the top during the summer for food, scenery, and activities. At Keystone specifically, most of the trails on the mountain are designated for mountain biking but there is a short loop for hiking that goes to a slightly higher elevation.
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Meadowlark Botanical Gardens
It has been more than a month since we last visited the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Virginia. It has been a rather hot and humid summer so we haven’t been out much. Luckily, today was quite comfortable with clear blue skies, reasonable temperatures, and minimal humidity! In the park, there were still many flowers to see and birds as well, though we didn’t see as many as on previous visits. But overall, it was still a great place to be!
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Middle Patuxent Environmental Area
We were in Howard County, Maryland today and decided to visit the Middle Patuxent Environmental Area. It covers a large area along the Middle Patuxent River and contains various trails. We ended up doing the Wildlife Loop Trail by the main parking lot. It was a bit wet and muddy at places but we got through it.
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Meadowlark Botanical Gardens
We decided to visit Meadowlark Botanical Gardens again today, late in the morning before heading to lunch in Fairfax. While we didn’t find any Baltimore Orioles this time around, we did see many birds and pretty flowers! We also saw our first Purple Martins, a species that we’ve never seen before!
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Lotus Season at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens
The lotus flowers at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens have begun to bloom! We made a late morning visit to check them out. Its not peak yet but there are some very beautiful examples already! Peak bloom is currently expected to occur in three weeks.
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National Arboretum and the Fern Valley
After having lunch inside the DC beltway, we decided to head a bit further in to the National Arboretum. We parked at the National Grove of State Trees and ultimately found ourselves walking along the short Fern Valley loop trail. A nice walk with a nice breeze, lots of shade, some flowers, and a few birds.
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Here and there but not quite everywhere!