After sharing a peek into our recent trip to Italy (here and here), I’m rounding out the “how I spent my summer vacation” series with some shots from a swing through Virginia to visit family on our way back to the West Coast.

The scenery may have changed, but marathon training continued full-steam ahead — with the addition of a few essential accessories, such as bear spray and my favorite hunting hat, of course.

Beautiful scenery, and best of all? Fewer hills than Italy!

The flatter routes and quiet stretches were welcome changes from some of our climbs through some of those tiny, crowded, winding roads overseas.

By this point, we were also going through a bad case of animal withdrawal after not having seen our dogs for a few weeks.

So we were a little over-eager to “rub some fur,” whether it was spoiling the horses next door with carrots or visiting these funny little fellows down the street each morning.

After our runs, we’d sit out on the deck for what we dubbed as “critters and coffee” to watch all the wildlife in action (birds, groundhogs, deer, chipmunks, squirrels, and more).

But there was one run-in that made me think twice about tromping around the woods after seeing it up close — a timber rattler, the only rattlesnake species in the northeast.

In between running, wildlife watching and ramping back up at work, we got our hands dirty with a few projects around the house.

My favorite was this anti-erosion wall, which required equal parts brains and brawn to haul the rocks and then piece them together like a huge puzzle.

Another bonus of being out in the countryside, practically in the middle of nowhere? Getting to shoot stuff!

Hubby’s a crack shot when it comes to blasting clay pigeons with his shotgun, while I prefer to use my 17 caliber rifle for a little target practice.

We toyed with the idea of extending our stay since I work remotely and Hubby doesn’t start his job until next month…but sometimes it’s better to just rip the Band-Aid and get back to reality.

Plus, I like to look on the bright side — when one vacation ends, it means you can start planning and looking forward to the next one!

Next up in our travels: KineticFix makes the move north to PDX! Stay tuned for all the details…