Devil's Marbleyard and Smith Mountain Lake State Park

This past Thanksgiving I finally had the chance to get outside again (may I mention that graduate school is consuming my life!?).  My family and I were at the lake for Thanksgiving and so I was back in the Southern part of Virginia and able to enjoy some quality outdoors time.  My family, Casey, and I enjoyed a trip to the State Park and I caught up with some college friends on a trip to the Devil's Marbleyard the next day.

Casey on a rock wall at Smith Mountain Lake State Park

Boo at Smith Mountain Lake State Park

Sneaking some photos through the trees of my friends at the marbleyard

I may have mentioned my last experience at the Devil's Marbleyard in which a boulder fell, plinko-style, down the marbleyard while I stood transfixed as I waited to see if it would stop before turning me into a human pancake.  Fortunately, that day was not destined to be my last, and the boulder finally wedged itself behind another boulder after an eternity-seeming several seconds.  This time around, my friends were set on returning to the marbleyard (they were not there to witness my near death boulder experience).  I was not about to turn down an opportunity to hike and socialize and so I tagged along with the plan to avoid the boulder field.  The trip from the lake made me long to return to the mountains.  Instead of following the route through Bedford and onto 81, we climbed up and over a mountain on some tight little back roads. Southwest VA, oh how I have missed you.

Another view of my friends on the boulders

When we finally arrived to the marbleyard, we met up with a friend's brother who had brought along his four month old puppy.  If you haven't been to the marbleyard, let me start by saying that it is not an ideal place for dogs.  The hike to the boulder field is just fine for your four-legged friends.  The boulder field, however, is far from an ideal playground for a dog (this is coming from someone who is generally all about bringing the dog on every possible excursion).  As it turned out, the fact that I was planning to avoid the marbleyard came in handy.  It took some convincing, but finally the friend's brother agreed to let me walk the puppy up the bushwhacked path along the side of the boulder field.  We would reconvene at the top.  I'm not exactly sure what his alternate plan was - perhaps to carry the dog on his shoulders?  That seemed like a disaster waiting to happen and so I was happy to take the dog.  Plus, a little company is never a bad thing.

Bailey the puppy on the way up the mountain

Bailey takes a break on the way up

Unfortunately, the dog had different ideas.  She was not thrilled to be left with a strange human in a strange place on the side of a mountain and so conveniently tried to drag me down the mountain each time I stepped on a particularly slippery rock or patch of leaves.  As such, the trip up the side trail was a full body workout - me dragging, carrying, and prodding the puppy along while trying to maintain my footing.  In the end, we made it to the top and the dog was a trooper, but it might have been best for her to have been left at home.  Regardless, it was an enjoyable time and I remember just how much I miss being in the rural areas of Virginia.