Mr. A and I are lucky enough to be able to work an alternative work schedule where we have every other Friday off (don’t get too excited though–on the other work days we are there for nine and a half hours).
Unfortunately, we’ve gotten into this habit of using that day off as an errand day instead of a fun day, which kind of defeats the purpose of working so hard on those other weekdays.
So I decided to surprise Mr. A by shaking up our routine with a fun Friday off. We had been talking about going on a picnic for awhile so I decided to up the ante by planning an entire outdoor day.
Cut to Friday morning, where I told Mr. A to dress himself in comfortable clothes and get ready for a surprise. While he was sleeping, I secretly packed a picnic lunch for the day and got our GPS set to take us to Leesylvania State Park.
After a short 30 minute ride, we arrived at Leesylvania State Park.
This state park is situated on a 542 acre peninsula that is surrounded by the Potomac River. Since the park covers such a vast area, it offers tons of activities including boating, hiking, fishing, and camping.
While Virgina has a plethora of state parks to pick from, I decided on Leesylvania because it has a large beachfront and it also has some unique Lee family ties (which wins major brownie points with my Southern hubs). Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee’s childhood home was once located on this property.
We started our adventure with a stroll along the southern beachfront, Potomac Beach. The beach was probably one of the most interesting we’ve seen in a long time, complete with these exposed root trees. While you can’t swim in the water (the current is too strong), it was still nice to hear the sounds of the water hitting the sand.
The beach also had shells strewn across the sand. We had fun playing who can spot the most shells.
As we strolled further north along the beachfront, we came upon this fishing pier. It reminded me a lot of my childhood days in the Outer Banks fishing off the pier–although the fisherman on this pier didn’t look nearly as successful as my Dad 
Just past the pier was another small beach, Freestone Point Beach.
The beach abruptly ends on the Northern side with this unique cliffside, which would make for some amazing pictures if there weren’t a fence and a no trespressing sign preventing you from getting close.
Having worked up quite an appetite with that mile walk, we took a load off at a picnic table and indulged in our packed picnic lunch, including these delicious homemade blueberry oatmeal muffins (recipe coming tomorrow).
While we were eating lunch, I told Mr. A about the Lee history of the State Park and the trail that goes through some historic sites, including the remnants of the old Lee family home.
Immediately enthralled with the idea of seeing Lee artifacts, he asked if we could hike the trail. So after lunch, we embarked on the 2 mile hike though the Lee’s Woods Trail.
The sites were pretty lackluster–the buildings are all pretty much destroyed so you see a lot of signs explaining what use to be in the grass field you see in front of you. We did however get a close encounter with Bambi.
Once we finished the grueling uphill hike, we decided to move onto a flatter beachside hike on the southern edge of the park, Bushey Point Trail.
This trail goes through swamp beaches so most of it is on raised walkways and it’s pretty stinky.
We saw some more wildlife on this side of the park, including the cute crane above.
The coolest part about this trail was that it overlooks the train bridge, which I bet has great fishing around it.
By the time we reached the end of the trail, the skies started looking pretty ominous (see how dark it is in the picture above) so we decided to call it a day.
We really had a nice great time exploring the great outdoors at Leesylvania State Park and it only costs us $4 to get in. We both really needed to take a day to just appreciate the beauty around us and spend quality time together.
It’s nice to take a break from Frenetic Fridays and turn them into Fantastic Fridays. I couldn’t pick a better person with whom to spend the day.
How do you spend time with your honey?
