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National and State Park Travel Stories from California, Alabama, and Virginia (Ep 88, Part 1) · Virginia Outdoor Adventures: Hiking, Camping, Kayaking, Local Travel and more!

• 0:00
  Jessica Bowser: Brian, from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia is a mecca for outdoor travel and adventure. Virginia Outdoor Adventures podcast is your local guide for hiking, camping, kayaking, travel, and so much more. Get the information and the inspiration to plan your own adventure right here in Virginia. I'm your host, Jessica Bowser. A couple of months ago, I took a chance on something different and shared stories from my travels beyond Virginia.
• 0:32
  Jessica Bowser: The response was overwhelming.
• 0:32
  Jessica Bowser: In this solo episode, I'm taking you along on another whirlwind journey that spans 1000s of miles and some of the most memorable outdoor adventures I've had all year, from birding along Alabama's Gulf Coast and exploring Chincoteagues marshes to rock climbing in Shenandoah National Park, hiking brand new trails at the breaks, and standing under giant redwoods in California's Muir Woods. There's a lot to unpack along the way, I'll share stories from the trail, tips to plan your own adventure, and a few behind the scenes moments from recent podcast episodes. Plus, I'm asking for your feedback as I consider a question that could shape the future of Virginia outdoor adventures. So, grab your hiking boots, binoculars, or favorite road trip snack, and join me for a journey through state and national parks, coastal landscapes, mountain trails, and the adventures that continue to inspire this podcast. Let's go. Hello, friends, and welcome back to another solo episode of Virginia Outdoor Adventures. It was so wonderful meeting many of you at two different events these past two weekends. Both events happened to be in Loudoun County. The first was Trail Fest at Dirt Farm Brewing. This is the first year that Dirt Farm has done this event. I was talking to the owner, and he wanted to celebrate the brand new trail that they just installed on the property. He was saying that they had a lot of acreage and nothing was being done with it, and so they decided to install this trail, so that people could come and hike it. It's a little over three miles. I hiked it while I was there. Really, really nice trail, mostly wooded, especially for the first half, but there are some sections that pass through open meadows where you get these really expansive views of the mountains all around, and of the farms that are down below in the valley. The trail also passes by a couple of ponds, and it gets a little steep at the end, but for the most part it's a pretty easy to moderate trail.
• 2:32
  Jessica Bowser: I really enjoyed hiking it, and of course, the brewery itself just has epic views right from the parking lot, and the patio and the entrance, so it was a really wonderful event. I saw a lot of folks who were out hiking in a meetup group, and to my delight, a lot of them were like, "Oh, I listened to your podcast, but I didn't know you were going to be here. What a pleasant surprise. So it was really nice meeting people, and also I was especially appreciative of those of you who bought me a beer. Anybody who wants to buy me a beer, I am happy to accept any time. And then the other event that I attended was the Loudon Appalachian Trail Festival, and that's in Hillsboro. This is the second year in a row that I've attended really wonderful events celebrating the AT and the surrounding community, lots of vendors, live music. I saw my friend Mills Kelly there. Mills has been a guest on this episode twice in the past. He is an expert on the Appalachian Trail, and his recent book is A Hiker's History to the Appalachian Trail. What a gem that book is.
• 3:38
  Jessica Bowser: What a gem Mills is. If you have listened to the two episodes where he's been a guest on this podcast, man, he just knows everything there is to know about the Appalachian Trail, and his books reflect that. It's so fascinating, the history, and it's so fascinating to listen to Mills talk. He was one of the speakers at the event, so it was fun catching up with him. The other friend that I got to catch up with was Erin Gifford, who is also a two-time guest on this podcast. She has many, many books.
• 4:07
  Jessica Bowser: The two books that we talked about on this podcast, one of them is a guide to hiking with kids in Virginia, and the other one is a guide to hiking the summits of Virginia. That was the more recent one. I'll see if I can find those and pop them into the show notes, if you're interested. They're oldies, but goodies. Aside from that, I got to meet so many of you. That was absolutely the highlight. Lots of folks came out. Sometimes this podcasting gig feels a little one-sided, where I'm talking into a mic all the time, but I don't always get to interact with all of you, so these in-person events is a wonderful opportunity for me to actually get to see people, to say hello, to thank you for your support, and for listening to the podcast, and to just share fun stories. Like, that's the best part, is I start talking to people, and we start talking about our adventures and.
• 4:58
  Jessica Bowser: Sharing what we've done and what's coming up, and I just enjoy that so, so much. If you are interested in meeting me at an upcoming event, the best place to find that information is on my Instagram and Facebook pages. I post it there, I share it into stories. I do also try to include it in my email newsletter, but the problem with that is that I often don't know if I'm attending an event until the last minute, or I'm unsure if I'm going to be able to make it or not, and so I tend to rely more on social media, because also, if something happens, like if there's a weather cancelation, or one time I got sick, I will put that in social media as well. So always check before you come out to meet me, because you never know, you don't want to get out there and find out that I'm not there, or the event is canceled. So, always check on social media, but hopefully there will be more events coming up soon, where I can meet you all live and in person. I'm excited to share some incredible news. Virginia Outdoor Adventures has been nominated for three Signal Awards, a prestigious and highly recognized honor in the podcasting industry. The show was nominated in the categories of travel, solopreneur podcast, and sustainability and environment. This is one of the biggest achievements of my career, and it's made possible by listeners like you. What began as a passion project has grown into a platform that promotes tourism, economic development, conservation, and stewardship across Virginia through stories that connect people to the outdoors. As a solo entrepreneur, every episode is researched, recorded, produced, and promoted by me.
• 6:39
  Jessica Bowser: Your contributions through Buy Me a Coffee have helped fund travel equipment production costs and the countless hours required to create the show.
• 6:46
  Jessica Bowser: Your encouragement has turned Virginia Outdoor Adventures into an award-nominated platform that is making a difference. To celebrate this milestone and help fuel the next season of Adventures, I hope you'll consider supporting the podcast through Buy Me a Coffee. Just click Support the show Buy Me a Coffee in your show notes to make a contribution today. Thank you for listening, sharing episodes, and being part of this incredible community. Your support helps make the next season of Adventures possible.
• 7:19
  Jessica Bowser: All right, so what's new in this solo episode? Well, last April I had just come off a stretch of incredible nationwide travel. I had been hiking among the saguaros of Arizona, Sonoran Desert. I saw the ultra rare island scrub jay on the dramatic cliffs of California's Channel Islands. I went ice climbing on the frozen shorelines of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and I even discovered dinosaur tracks in Texas, and I had been posting pictures and videos of all of those adventures on social media, and the response that I was getting was people asking me to please talk about this in an upcoming podcast episode, so the last solo episode I did in April, I shared all of these adventures.
• 8:06
  Jessica Bowser: I was a little unsure if I should or not, because this podcast is about Virginia outdoor adventures, and all the experts say when you niche down, you need to stay within your niche, but I had gotten all this request, and so I decided to experiment a little bit, and just see how people reacted, and the feedback that I got was that people loved it, and they were asking for more of it, and I've been doing a whole lot of travel since then, even though it's only been what, two months, even I'm getting the same requests again, people asking me to please talk about these different adventures in an upcoming episode, so I'm gonna do this again. It's got me thinking that maybe I should expand a little bit more. Maybe this podcast should go beyond Virginia's borders. I'm not convinced, but it's just an idea that I'm kicking around, and I would love to get your feedback on it, which reminds me that it is time for my annual listener survey. So, if you've done the listener survey in the past, you know what it's all about. You click the link, you take about six minutes to answer a bunch of questions about your listening habits and what you enjoy or would like to see different about this podcast, and once you complete it, you are entered into a drawing for a gift certificate to River Rock Outfitters in Fredericksburg.
• 9:28
  Jessica Bowser: Because I appreciate your feedback, and because I'm appreciative of your time. I really enjoy reviewing that survey when it's complete, because the feedback that you all give me is so valuable, and it's insightful, and it's thoughtful, and I can tell that people really take the time to let me know what they think in a very genuine way, and that helps shape future content. Whenever I'm thinking about what direction this podcast needs to go in, what do people want? What do they want to hear? How do I reach people? All of those things come from the listener survey, so it makes a big difference. I will put that link in the show notes. Please let me know what you think. I'm going to add a question or two about expanding the content beyond Virginia. Please be honest with me, I know I've gotten a lot of positive feedback, but also I realize that people who like it and want it are the ones who are going to say so, and the people who don't like it and don't want it are not as likely to say so.
• 10:24
  Jessica Bowser: So, please let me know on the listener survey what your thoughts are about expanding the content beyond Virginia. So, what are we talking about today?
• 10:39
  Jessica Bowser: Well, as you know, the most recent podcast episode was about birding in Virginia State Parks.
• 10:43
  Jessica Bowser: It is one of the fastest growing outdoor activities or outdoor hobbies in America. No surprise, it is easily accessible. It connects people to nature. It's a really fun, almost addicting type of activity, and so I was just looking at my life list, which is how many species I've seen over my lifetime. I added almost 30 new species since the beginning of 2026 and all but one is from my travels. So here's where birding starts to get dangerous, friends. It is that addiction, it is that excitement of finding something new, and people are willing to travel for it. They will travel around the country, they will travel to other countries, different continents, you name it. People will go anywhere to see birds, and I am all about it. I am here for it. So, I will try to limit all of my excitement for the birds when I talk about my travels, but it's going to be hard, so I promise not to completely bore you with it. Actually, I'm totally lying.
• 11:48
  Jessica Bowser: I am going to talk about a lot of birds, so I hope that that gets you excited. And if you're thinking, what the heck is she talking about, check out the latest episode about birding in Virginia State Parks with Ranger Evan Spears, he is one of the best birders in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Unbelievable, how much knowledge this man has, and so exciting and fun to talk to him about it. So, where have I been since April? Well, I've been to the Gulf Shores of Alabama.
• 12:16
  Jessica Bowser: Then I went to Sky Meadows for the Astronomy Is for Everyone program to meet Ranger Patrick for the episode on Virginia's Dark Sky Parks. Then I was over to Lake Anna State Park to meet Ranger Evan for the episode about birding. Then I was on the road to Breaks Interstate Park in southwest Virginia for an awesome, awesome episode that I just recorded with Rangers Ronnie and Daniel to talk about some brand new trails down there, from breaks I drove clear across the state to Chincoteague with a stop in Norfolk, and when I got back from Chincoteague, I was rock climbing in Shenandoah National Park, and then I was on a plane to San Francisco, California, where I had so many amazing outdoor adventures. I'm going to try to share them all with you, but, man, it's a lot to get through. So, I'm going to try to hit the highlights and keep you entertained. So, let's go. I have more exciting news to share. The Virginia's Adventure Town series of this podcast has been nominated for a signal award in the travel category, one of the most prestigious honors in podcasting. When I launched this podcast, I never imagined it would lead to a recognition like this.
• 13:31
  Jessica Bowser: Virginia's Adventure Towns highlights communities across the commonwealth through their outdoor adventures, plus local lodging, dining, and attractions, and the people who make each destination special, from mountain towns to riverfront communities. The series celebrates the places that make Virginia such an incredible destination to explore. The nomination is one of the biggest milestones of my career, and it's a reminder of what this project has become, thanks to listeners like you.
• 13:58
  Jessica Bowser: What started as a passion project has grown into a platform that helps promote tourism, support local economies, and inspire people to discover new places across Virginia. As a solo creator, every episode is researched, recorded, produced, and promoted by me. If this series has inspired you to plan a road trip, visit a new town or uncover a hidden gem. I hope you'll consider supporting the show. Just click support the show, buy me a coffee in your show notes to make a contribution today. Thank you for being part of this journey, and for helping me continue telling the stories of Virginia's most inspiring adventure towns. The first place I visited was Gulf Shores, Alabama, and it's kind of funny how this trip ended up happening. So, originally, my husband was supposed to attend a conference for work overseas, and it happened to overlap with his birthday weekend, so I was going to tag along with him, and then the trip got canceled. So, he said to me, "Well, it's my birthday weekend. And I still want to go somewhere. Where do you want to go? And he has a bucket list goal of visiting all 50 states, and I think he's at like 38 or 39 So I said, why don't you pick a state you've never been to and see if you can't find some sort of events or activities going on that weekend. So he randomly picked Alabama and Googled it, and guess what came up, the Alabama Coastal Bird Fest. Who even knew such a thing existed? So he's showing this to me, and I'm like, are you sure you want to do this on your birthday weekend? Because I want to do this, but it's not my birthday, and you're not going to see me the whole time, because I am going to be with my bins out in the field birding and he told me it was fine and I said okay I'm gonna need you to write that down but the way they had it set up was it was three days of field trips and there were options for morning and afternoon and there were a ton of options and all of the field trips were in Mobile and the towns along the river delta and along Gulf Shores, so there were so many options of locations and different types of field trips.
• 16:12
  Jessica Bowser: So he sent me the link so I could take a look at it, and as I was going through the site and I saw who the keynote speaker was, I was like, this is a done deal. Like, book the flights.
• 16:22
  Jessica Bowser: I'm going upstairs to pack my bag.
• 16:24
  Jessica Bowser: The keynote speaker was Bonner Black, and if you don't know who she is, she's a rising star in the music industry, and she's a huge birder, and she promotes her music through birding content, which I think is kind of hilarious, but also I love it because she is attracting so many young people into birding, and why does that matter?
• 16:45
  Jessica Bowser: Because we need young people to feel a connection to nature if we want them to care about conservation and stewardship and the environment, and birding provides that. So, here is this young, talented up-and-coming musician who is attracting all of these young people to birding, and I was like, yes, absolutely, sign me up, let's go. So we flew into Mobile the night before Bird Fest, stayed in an airport hotel because the opening reception was in Fair Hope, which is closer to the airport than the Gulf Shores, where we stayed the rest of the time. Fair Hope is an adorable town. I knew nothing about the Gulf Shores before arriving, and I feel like I just need to say this, because I was so pleasantly surprised. I did not know what to expect of Alabama.
• 17:33
  Jessica Bowser: I don't think I knew a thing about Alabama before we went, and what really surprised me were all the people jumping into my comments to say, oh, my family vacations there every summer, or I was just there last week, or this is one of my favorite places to go. Somebody even said to me that their retired parents are living in Florida, but it's getting too expensive, so they're thinking about moving to Alabama, and I was like, what? I really did not know what to expect. I found it to be a charming area, very pretty. The people were all super nice. The people that I met were all very focused on conservation and promoting outdoor recreation. So, those are my people, and I just had a really, really nice time. Fair Hope kind of reminded me, the architecture, anyway, of New Orleans, a little bit. It was a very artsy town. I would love to go back at some point and just spend some more time there. In the morning of the first day, I went to an Audubon sanctuary out on Dolphin Island. It is literally an island off the Gulf Coast. I spent the day walking around, seeing all kinds of birds, turtles, and despite all of the signs that said to beware of the gators, I looked and looked and looked and did not find a gator, and was so disappointed. But later that night, I went to the reception.
• 18:51
  Jessica Bowser: Bonner Black was the keynote speaker. I was really impressed with her delivery. I wasn't really sure what to expect from a musician who was a birder, I know the content that I see online, but I didn't know her backstory, and what she shared with us was that she had gone through some difficult and challenging times in her life, and it was during those times that she discovered birding, and it got her mind off of things that were troubling her. It was the mindfulness aspect of it that helped her feel better, and then she started volunteering in a wildlife rehab center, where she was educated on birds and different wildlife in the area, and then her hobby just sort of exploded. Fun story. So one of her favorite birds is the Arctic Tern, and that bird has one of the longest migration routes of any animal on earth, they travel somewhere between 44,050 9000 miles every year, so they, they literally go from north pole to south pole and back again. And she said when she learned this fact about arctic tern, she was absolutely astonished, and it in. Inspired her to write her most recently released song, which is called Little Bird in a Big Sky, and it's such an inspirational song. It's beautifully written. Please find it on Spotify. I think you'll really enjoy it. Then she performed the song for us. She played her guitar and she sang, and what an awesome way to kick off our bird fest. I've been to lots of birding events before.
• 20:25
  Jessica Bowser: This was probably one of the best. It was the highlight of the whole trip, and I'm still like giddy just thinking about it.
• 20:33
  Jessica Bowser: Day two, I did not sign up for any field trips because we were moving hotels. We decided to go back down to Dauphin Island to find a snowy plover that was a bird that I needed for my life list. It is a small white shore bird, and in the spring they nest on beaches. So here I am on the beach. I'm thinking there is no way I'm gonna find this bird, like all these people are out here in swimsuits with umbrellas and chairs, and they're playing games, and they're running around, and here's me with my big floppy hat and my long sleeve shirt, and I'm covered to my ankles and my wrist to protect myself from the sun, looking like an old lady, and I'm going up and down this freaking hot beach, and I was just about to give up. My husband was sitting in the car, of course, because he had no interest in any of this, and I was like, if I don't get myself back to the car soon, he's going to get impatient, and then I'm going to have to deal with that.
• 21:27
  Jessica Bowser: Nobody needs that, so I'm just about to give up, and I hear a sound, and I turn around to see the small white bird fly in and land in a puddle in the middle of the beach, and I raised my bins, and sure enough, bam, Snowy Plover. So excited, I was stoked. I ran back to the car.
• 21:51
  Jessica Bowser: My husband was asleep in the hot car. I could have killed him, because he left the engine running that whole time. Oh, so bad for the environment. But then we jumped in the car, and started heading towards Gulf Shores. We took the Mobile Bay ferry, which crosses the Delta, and it's one of those ferries where you drive your car onto the ferry. So, I don't think I've done one of those in like a gazillion years. So, I was really excited to do that. We jumped on the ferry, and just the boat ride - I mean, you can get out of your car once you're on the boat, and they've got two different observation platforms on the ferry, so I've got myself perched up on this observation platform with my bins, and I'm looking at the oyster catchers and the pelicans and all the gulls perched on all the rocks as the ferry is leaving the dock, and then I was looking for shore birds. It was really weird to see all these oil rigs. There were oil rigs everywhere, like even the day before, when I was at the Autobahn sanctuary, and I was walking on the beach. There was all these rigs out on the horizon. I'm not used to seeing that, so that was a little strange. And then, when you're actually out on the Fury, you get much closer to them, so you can see them operating. It's just.. it's weird, you know.
• 23:05
  Jessica Bowser: While it was weird to me, because I guess I'm.. I'm not used to that. We took the ferry across the delta to Fort Morgan, and there was a bird banding station set up at Fort Morgan.
• 23:16
  Jessica Bowser: So, if you're not familiar with bird banding stations, it's a research facility where trained ornithologists and other volunteers actually catch wild birds that are passing through.
• 23:27
  Jessica Bowser: They're almost always set up in the spring during migration, when there are lots and lots of birds coming through the area.
• 23:34
  Jessica Bowser: They catch these birds, they take them out of the nets, and then they fit them with a leg band that has a number on it, so that if this bird gets caught again, they can track data on it, and then they record all this biological information, and then they release them as quickly as they can, because they don't want the birds to be stressed for very long.
• 23:55
  Jessica Bowser: I have been trained to volunteer at bird banding stations, but I did it like back in 2020 right before Covid, and then Covid hit, and we didn't get an opportunity to actually do any bird banding that year, everything got shut down, and then then I started this podcast, and it was way too busy, so I never had a chance to actually participate in bird banding, so I really wanted to see it, so we went over there, and not only was it exciting because we got to see the birds caught in the net, we got to watch them remove the birds and like actually go through the process of recording the data and putting the band on the leg, but then I got to hold the birds and release them, which was really exciting. I got to do it not once but twice. The first bird was a black and white warbler, and so the person who was, who had the bird, I actually, I think she may have worked for, yeah, I think she was one of the biologists for Auto Bod, was showing me how to hold it, and then how to release it, and then we also caught a female Scarlet Tanager that I got to release as well, I've got these really great videos in Slow. Fomo of me letting go of the bird and the bird taking off from my hand, so fun. One of the highlights of the trip after the bird banding. Then we drove over to Golf State Park, where we checked into the lodge. This was really interesting to me, because Alabama is very different from Virginia, and that their state parks have lodges on site, and when I say lodge, I'm not talking about like a rustic log cabin, I'm talking about a huge resort hotel that is run and operated by Hilton, and so it's called the Lodge, that's the name of it, The Lodge at Golf State Park, and we checked in, and I was just sort of like, what, this is a state park. I was sort of blown away. The hotel was beautiful. The lobby was enormous, huge fireplaces, windows overlooking the Gulf, a coffee shop on site, just really, really pretty, a little gift shop. And then we went up to the room. The rooms were beautiful. We had a balcony overlooking the golf. I'm standing on the balcony, looking down at two different pools. One was for adults only. I seriously could not have been happier.
• 26:16
  Jessica Bowser: There was a family pool on the other side, and then beyond that, access to the beach, and they had a company out there that you could rent chairs and umbrellas from. There was a restaurant on site, there was an outdoor restaurant and bar, there was an ice cream stand, more gift shops. I mean, it was just sort of like mind-boggling.
• 26:38
  Jessica Bowser: I could not believe that this was in a state park, and I have been to other states that have these resort type hotels, even some of our neighboring states do. Maryland does. I've stayed in resorts in West Virginia, I think North Carolina does. I'm, if I'm remembering correctly, Ohio, I've stayed at it's just so interesting to me how different some of these states operate within their state parks, and in Gulf State Park, it's not like you drive up to a contact station and you have to pay to get in. There's a highway that runs right through the middle of it, and it's continuous, and anybody can drive through, and anybody can stop. Now, you are supposed to pay a parking fee when you stop in certain areas, but because we were staying at the lodge, they just gave us a pass, and I could drive anywhere I wanted and not have to pay the parking fee.
• 27:29
  Jessica Bowser: Also, there was a huge pier within walking distance of the hotel, and this pier, I wish I could tell you exactly how long it was, as the longest pier I think I've ever seen. If you're staying at the lodge, you can access the pier for free, but otherwise people have to pay lots of people fishing. You need to have a fishing license, but there was a restaurant on site on the pier.
• 27:53
  Jessica Bowser: There was karaoke going on when we walked by, but once you get past that area, which is really near the entrance, then you just find people out there fishing and birding signs everywhere about how you're not allowed to fish for sharks, and if you catch a sea turtle, you're supposed to report it. There was a great blue heron that was walking around on the end of the pier amongst all the people, and great blue herons are about as tall as people are, so here is this massive bird that looks like a dinosaur just walking around. I don't know what it was doing. I think probably stealing pieces of fish, because people reel in these huge carts and they're out there like all day long, and they're cleaning the fish on the carts on the pier, and so I think probably this heron was just looking for a free handout, and he found the right spot for it too, because there was fish bits all over the place, and it was so funny to just watch this heron walking around like it owned the place.
• 28:52
  Jessica Bowser: And then on the way back, we had just gotten off the pier, and I heard this meep, and I freaked, because I thought it was a woodcock and I started running like a crazy person towards the sand dunes and I at some point I turned around to see where my husband was and he had his phone out and was taking a video of me running and getting so excited but also at the same time I'm like wait cocks on the beach like that doesn't make any sense woodcocks live in wooded areas turns out it wasn't woodcocks, it was common night hawks, which is a bird in the night jar family, and they're very active at night, so they make this meeping sound, and they take off, and you see them doing all these aerial stunts, where they're actually just catching bugs. So I stood out there for a really long time watching these common night hawks, because I have never seen so many in one place, so that was a real treat.
• 29:44
  Jessica Bowser: Day three of Bird Fest, my first official field trip. I am standing out on the beach with a small group of other birders, and we're looking for shore birds, and we look to the east, and it's a beautiful. Morning, then we looked to the west, and oh my goodness, huge dark looming clouds heading our direction. We knew there was a chance of some really bad storms. I think we maybe had half an hour before it hit, and then it was downpour like you would not believe, but not before I got a lifer gall builder, bam, for anybody who is familiar with what a fallout is, or if you have seen the movie The Big Year from 2011 with who's in that, Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson, then you know what a fallout is.
• 30:36
  Jessica Bowser: Fallout happens usually during migration when 1000s upon 1000s of birds are crossing over the Gulf, and these huge storms hit, and it has to ground all of these birds. These birds need to land, or they're going to get caught in the storm, and so all of these migrating birds land on the Gulf Coast, and it's essentially known as fallout, and birders love this event, because all of the birds that they wouldn't have seen that were passing overhead are now on the ground, and so we're all standing there, not at all bummed out about this awful storm, because we're all thinking fallout. Unfortunately for me, my afternoon consisted of a field trip where we were getting on a boat, so I did not have an opportunity to go running, chasing birds that were in the fallout, so I was just kind of hoping that we were going to see them from the boat.
• 31:29
  Jessica Bowser: So, in the afternoon, my husband joined me. We went to Historic Blakely State Park, which is the site of Alabama's largest Civil War battlefields. There's remnants of an early 19th century ghost town. There's a lot of Native American settlements that were there, and then they have a scenic boat tour of the Mobile 10 Saw Delta, which is what we were there for.
• 31:51
  Jessica Bowser: So we jump on this little boat, it was us and a group of people, plus a park ranger and the boat captain, and my hope was to find swallow-tailed kite, which is a bird of prey in the hawk family.
• 32:04
  Jessica Bowser: It's very distinct black and white patterns. It's got long, pointed wings, and it has a long, deeply forked, scissor-like tail, which makes it really easy to spot when you see it. So, I had my fingers crossed for swallow-tailed kite.
• 32:20
  Jessica Bowser: We get on this boat. First thing we see is this osprey on a massive nest, and the nest was built on a pine tree, and it was full of Spanish moss. Prettiest thing I have ever seen. I see osprey nests all over Virginia all the time. They are not dripping with Spanish moss. This nest was that was fun. We saw eagles, we saw an anhinga, which is a large black bird, sort of looks like a cormorant, but a little bit bigger. And then finally we saw gators, and they were everywhere, they were floating around in the delta and just doing their little gator thing. I was scanning for a least bit turn, in addition to trying to find the swallowtail kite, Elise Bittern is a heron, very, very small heron that is here in Virginia, but I have never seen one. They're very elusive, they live in the reeds, so a lot of people will maybe hear them but not ever see them.
• 33:19
  Jessica Bowser: I have neither seen nor heard one, so I was scanning the reeds. The boat is sort of putting along. We had been on board for probably two hours already, maybe longer. People were kind of starting to get tired, and we're putting along, and I'm like scanning the reeds, and right in the mud in between the reeds, I see something really small that has a thick yellow bill and a dark face and a dark body, just sort of moving around in between the reeds, and it hit me that this has got to be a sora, and a sora. I've seen soras before, but there are small birds that hide in the reeds, you don't see them very often. They really are only in Virginia during migration, and even then only along the coast, so I realized this was kind of a big deal, and I yelled the group leader's name, and he turned around, and I yelled Sora at 3o'clock and I pointed off the side of the boat, and the captain cut the engine and started turning the boat around, everybody jumped up from their seats and rushed to one side of the boat and I'm explaining to everybody where to look, because all you see is reeds everywhere, and once everybody got their eyes on it, it was ooze and ahhs. We were on this bird for probably a good 20 minutes, people were taking pictures, it was a lifer for a lot of people, and I was just so happy that I was the one that spotted it.
• 34:42
  Jessica Bowser: Really, somebody should have bought me a beer at the end of that field trip for that spot.
• 34:44
  Jessica Bowser: At, I mean, that's like common birder etiquette, right? But nobody did, and I'm still a little miffed about it. But otherwise, really great trip. I did not see the swallow-tailed kite, which was really disappointing, because somebody else I had. Met that morning, had been on that boat tour the day before, and said that they saw like six or seven, and so to not even see one was super disappointing, but you know they're birds, that's part of the excitement of all this, you never know what you're going to see, you go out there looking for one thing and you don't see it, but then you find something else you didn't expect, and you're equally as happy. Fourth and final day of Alabama Coastal Bird Fest. Also, my husband's birthday, I was up before the crack of dawn and back out at Fort Morgan for what we call a sweep, which is where we take all of the sightings from the past few days, especially the rare sightings, and put together an itinerary, going out looking for those rare sightings in an area, and of course hitting all of the other species at the same time. Eric was our walk leader.
• 35:44
  Jessica Bowser: He probably is one of the most knowledgeable ornithologists I have ever met. We were getting started, and he was going over some logistics, and he looked at all of us and said, I can tell you are all experienced birders by your field markings. Ha ha, birder dad joke. And so we headed out across this old fort, and it was one lifer after another, Gray King Bird, bam, Bobolink, bam, Tennessee Warbler, bam, and then at some point we had all jumped into each other's cars and were caravanning, because it was a little easier to get around the fort that way. I met somebody who was from Roanoke, the people that I was riding around with, they have a daughter who lives in Alexandria, so there were some fun Virginia connections there. And the caravan of cars is going across the field on the fort. Eric's in the first car when he suddenly stops, he flies out of the driver side door like a clown coming out of a car at the circus, and he starts running down the line of cars, yelling, "Get out of your cars, get out of your cars, and we're like, "What is going on? And so we're all jumping out of the cars, and he's pointing to the sky, and I look up to see a magnificent fricket bird, a massive tropical sea bird, sometimes referred to as pirate, because they steal food from other birds midair, and the males have this large inflatable red throat patch. Think about, like, a spring peeper or another frog that that's whole throat just inflates when it calls.
• 37:13
  Jessica Bowser: That's what this bird has, but it's red and it's big, and they usually inflate during mating season. So we're all standing underneath this bird, and again, there is the oohs and the ahhs and the wows as this bird is circling right over our heads.
• 37:28
  Jessica Bowser: We had the most amazing views of it for a really long time too, and I wasn't sure if I was enjoying the bird more or if I was enjoying watching everybody's reactions to it, because this is such a cool bird to see, and we just watched it circle around for a long time before it started heading across the delta, where we found out from some other birders who were doing a field trip on the other side of the delta that it had gone in that direction and had been spotted over there shortly after we saw it. After seeing the magnificent frigate bird, we went over to this swampy area of the fort. Remember, I was still looking for a least bittern.
• 38:04
  Jessica Bowser: Eric knew this. He had asked all of us, like, which birds we were hoping to see. I told him least bittern, and I told him that I was really, really hoping for the swallowtail kite. So we went over to the swampy area, and we all lined up on the wall of the fort, facing the swamp, and he played a call of Elise Bittern, hoping that it would call back.
• 38:27
  Jessica Bowser: Now, this can be a controversial topic, calling birds, because we don't want to disrupt birds or confuse birds by playing calls that make them think there are other birds in the area. Some birds get territorial, some think they're hearing, you know, another bird that's around, they're searching for it, but in some cases, especially in this case, seeing Elise Bittern is almost impossible. So the only way to know if it's there is to play a call and hope that it'll call back. So, and he only did it one time, so he played the call, and we all stood there, and then we heard the bitter call back, and we're all like, yes, you know, check that one off the life list.
• 39:08
  Jessica Bowser: When all of a sudden it rises up out of the reeds and flies across the marsh and lands on the other side of the marsh, and all of us are like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, because you never see this bird, we couldn't believe that we heard it and saw it, and within a couple of minutes somebody realized that it had landed in the reeds, but then had come out to the edge of the reeds and was just standing out in the open, and so we all rushed over to where it was and were taking pictures, got really great looks of it for a pretty long time before it went back into the reads, and we were high fiving each other, and I was stoked again, because I couldn't believe after all these years I finally saw the least bittern, but that was not the end of the excitement, because after that we went back. To the part of the fort where the banding station had previously been set up, and there were warblers everywhere.
• 40:06
  Jessica Bowser: This was a forested area of the fort, so lots and lots of migrating warblers, and we're standing out, and what flies overhead but this huge white hawk-like bird with sharp pointed wings and a scissor-like tail, and somebody pointed at it and yelled 'Kite! And I looked up just in time to see it fly right over my head, and Eric says, 'Who wanted the swallow tail kite? And I was like, 'That was me. I think I did a hell yeah, and started doing a happy dance, and everybody around me was just feeling my excitement and my joy, because I saw everybody's face light up with smiles. So, what a wonderful way to end the other thing that happened right after that field, while not after that field trip.
• 40:52
  Jessica Bowser: During that field trip, we were watching these huge storm clouds come in again and again. You know what that means fallout, so all of us were making plans of going to lunch and then coming back at some point after the storm and doing another sweep, looking for birds from the fallout. I couldn't have been any more disappointed in my life because I had promised my husband, whose birthday it was that I would be back to the hotel at the end of this trip by lunchtime, and oh my god, you guys, you know I have been waiting my whole life for a fallout. I knew what a fallout was when I saw the movie The Big Year, I was like, oh my god, I want so badly to experience fallout. Here I am for the first time ever in a place where fallout occurs. It happens not once, but twice, and both times I did not get to go out looking for the birds. So I go back to the hotel. I'm trying to be cheery and excited for my husband, whose birthday it is, and I get back to the room, and he's pouting because I haven't paid enough attention to him all weekend on his birthday weekend.
• 42:09
  Jessica Bowser: Oh my god, you know, for anybody who thinks that I don't love my husband and I don't make sacrifices for our relationship, I gave up Fallout twice, and he still wasn't happy, and I was like, okay, I'm just gonna sit here and bite my tongue, because there's no point in going over the fact that I told him this was what was gonna happen this weekend, and he told me it was perfectly fine with him, but then once we got there, it wasn't fine, so anyway, he did eventually come around and stopped being so crabby. We went out to the beach, we rented chairs and an umbrella. We had fruity drinks with umbrellas in them. I think my drink was called Alabama Sunset. When we went out to dinner, we had a nice time, but yeah, no fallout.
• 42:58
  Jessica Bowser: I guess this just means I have to go back. Alabama Coastal Bird Fest is happening again next year. I might as well put it on my calendar now. And that was my trip, my very first trip to Alabama. As soon as I got back from Alabama, I found myself at Sky Meadows State park for the stars and guitars event.
• 43:23
  Jessica Bowser: I think I had previously said I was there for their monthly Astronomy for Everyone program, but I misspoke. I was actually there for Stars and Guitars, which is a little bit different because they have live music, and then they have a few telescopes set up, but not as many as they normally have for their monthly program. Before the event started, I got there early, so I could do some hiking, and I just want to say this about Sky Meadows. So, most people go there, and they go through the main entrance, and then they immediately start to climb the really steep trails that have the beautiful overlooks and the vantage points. It's the area of the park where the Appalachian Trail passes through, it's a wonderful trail system back there, one of my favorites in the state, but then there's this other side of the park that tends to get overlooked, route 17 sort of runs through the middle of the park, and a lot of people don't realize that there's a whole nother section of trail on the other side of route 17, and those are just slightly easier because the incline and the elevation is not nearly as steep. Some of the trails that go up to the highest points are a little steeper if you are looking for a little bit of a challenge, but if you're just looking for rolling hills and a little bit of forest and maybe some streams, like the trails on the other side are the way to go, and the entrance for that is just across from Turner Pond.
• 44:47
  Jessica Bowser: So, if you just keep going past the park entrance, assuming you're coming off of 66 keep going past the park entrance just a little ways, and you'll see it on your right hand side.
• 44:57
  Jessica Bowser: I especially love that part of the park. Like, not so much in summer, because you don't have the shade of the trees to protect you, but I love it in the shoulder seasons, and then in the winter, especially when it snows, that area usually is still open, like when other places close, but you're looking to hike in the snow, and you need something that's open, not always, but that area usually either tends to stay open or is one of the first to reopen, and I love taking my snowshoes and just going through the trails that that go through the meadows. It's so pretty.
• 45:29
  Jessica Bowser: Sometimes there's cows back there, and also you get to see a lot of wildlife because it's a wide open space. So, if you don't know about that other side of the park, now you do. So I met with Ranger Patrick, and I also got to meet with some of the volunteers from Novak, the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club. That episode is now out.
• 45:51
  Jessica Bowser: If you're looking for it, it's called Stargazing in Virginia: Dark Sky Parks with Ranger Patrick McNamara from Sky Meadows State Park. Within just a couple of days, I was in Lake Anna State Park to meet with Ranger Evan to do the birding episode. We hiked one of my favorite trails, which is the railroad Ford Trail, and it runs along the edge of the lake. It actually is a former rail bed, and what I like about this is you not only get the views of the lake, but you also are going through the forest, so you get to see birds and wildlife in both, and so we had a really great day, or at least a really great morning, until it started to rain. I actually had planned to camp there that night, but the weather did not cooperate, so even after packing up the car and totally being ready to camp, I decided just to drive home, which is disappointing, but the campgrounds there are nice. We did also did not get to do any paddling, we had hoped to do that, but it was just too cold.
• 46:50
  Jessica Bowser: And then right after Lake Anna, I was on the road to the breaks, Breaks Interstate Park, and you know you're in Appalachia when you have to stop your car in the middle of the road, because there are elk crossing the road, which is exactly what happened in my case.
• 47:05
  Jessica Bowser: I had reached the area near Southern Gap in Buchanan County, just outside the park, and there was a large herd of females hanging out on the side of the road, and I don't know exactly what they were doing. They weren't really crossing the road, they just decided they were gonna run across the road and then run back again, and then cross it again, and I was just sitting there going, What are you guys doing? Some of them would dart out into the road and then turn right back around and run back in the direction that they came. So it was slow moving through that area, but I did post a video of it. It was funny to me, because not only were they running in front of my car, but they were also running right past the bright yellow road sign with the picture of an elk on it, and if you have not heard me say this 1001 times already, there are elk tours from the breaks. If you haven't done one, I cannot encourage you enough to make that reservation now.
• 47:54
  Jessica Bowser: Either, for well, I guess now you would have to make it for the fall, because they don't do them in the summer, because the elk don't like the heat, so they tend to hunker down, and you don't really get to see them, but come fall, especially when you hit peak leaf color, oh my gosh, it's difficult to get a reservation, because it's so popular, so plan that visit now, get your lodge reservation, or your cabin reservation, or campsite reservation now, and as soon as reservations open up for the elk tours, make sure you are ready to call and make that reservation. I think Ranger Daniel is leading the elk tours now, and he is going to be a guest on the next episode, so you're going to get to know him, and just such a unique opportunity that you don't find anywhere else. So I arrived at the breaks. I was staying in a cabin on Laurel Lake. Their cabins are beautiful. If you've stayed in a state park cabin before, you kind of have an idea of what those look like. This is so much nicer. They are bigger, they are prettier, they feel more luxurious. I especially love that they have screened in porches overlooking the lake, so you can sit outside any time of the year and not get eaten alive by the bugs. And then they have a front porch with rocking chairs, and there are fire pits outside, and picnic shelters just outside the front door of your cabin, so access to trails is obviously easy, and they are so affordably priced. I can't say enough about these cabins.
• 49:23
  Jessica Bowser: They are such a great value and a great opportunity. And then the next morning I met with Rangers Daniel and Ronnie, which those two, their personalities put together, are so entertaining. So it was my first time meeting them. Ranger Daniel is originally from Texas, and moved to Kentucky for college.
• 49:42
  Jessica Bowser: Got the job as a ranger at the breaks, and now does a lot of their educational and interpretive programming. He is a wealth of knowledge of the flora and fauna in the area. And then you have Ranger Ronnie, who has deep roots in the area.
• 49:58
  Jessica Bowser: Family ties has some really funny stories from his childhood at the breaks and has a connection to the history of the place and to the park, so it was awesome to hear him telling those stories for the two days that we were together, and of course he has that Appalachian accent that I love so much, so I cannot wait for you guys to hear that episode. I just recorded it the other day, so it's still fresh on my mind. The purpose of my visit was for them to introduce me to the brand new trails that they just opened in the park. The part that I loved about this visit is that one of the first trails that they took me on is a former logging road bed, so if you don't know about the history of the breaks, long before it was a park, there was a considerable amount of logging that occurred in the area.
• 50:48
  Jessica Bowser: They were logging yellow tulip poplar, if I remember correctly, and these are massive trees, like these are some of the biggest species of trees that we have in Virginia, and they were logging 1000s of them, and using the gorge to float them to Ohio, so it's kind of mind-boggling to stand on that trail and look at this massive gorge, and to try to picture 1000s of huge logs in the gorge, and then opening up a flood dam to wash them down the gorge, and Ronnie talks about all of this in the episode, it's really mind-boggling. And so we were walking on this old logging road that had been grown over since it was last used 100 years ago, and Ronnie and his crew had to clear cut this road to turn it back into something accessible and walkable, and I said, so if this trail just opened a few days ago, is it fair to say that, other than you and the other park staff, that I, one of the first people to walk on this road in 100 years, and they were like, "Oh, yeah, absolutely, you are, and I just thought that was so cool. It made me feel like I was a part of this history now, and I cannot wait to share this with you, so that episode is coming out right after this one. The other additions that they've added that are really exciting are a couple of suspension bridges to trails to make them more accessible, so you might know about the bottom of the brakes trail, which is sort of epic for being the most difficult trail in the park, and it is difficult, and they've added a suspension bridge over a creek that feeds into the gorge to make the trail more accessible, but if you are afraid of heights, this may not be your cup of tea. This suspension bridge, I think he said, what did he say, it was 30 feet off the ground, which doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're up there looking down, it feels like a lot, and the bridge moves, so it sways when you walk on it, and if that is something that freaks you out, this might not be for you, but there are plenty of warning signs on all of the trail markers as you're heading down there, telling you that if you're not comfortable with this, you might want to turn around now. The bottom of the brakes trail is very difficult.
• 53:05
  Jessica Bowser: You will be exhausted by the time you even get to the bridge.
• 53:08
  Jessica Bowser: So, even if you do have a fear of heights, you're probably going to be compelled to try to get across it anyway, rather than turn around and go back the way you came. And I got to hear the stories about how they built the bridge and how they rerouted things, and it's just they put so much love and passion into these projects, and I got to hear all about it firsthand. You also now have access to places in the park and vantage points that weren't accessible before, so there is a trail to the bottom of the gorge, which most people have never seen. There is a trail to a vantage point on the other side of the gorge. So, if you've been to the breaks, you know that there are several overlooks and a visitor center and a restaurant and lodges all on one side of the park, and you can stand at those overlooks and look at the gorge. Well, now you can access the other side of the gorge and look towards all those things, beautiful, beautiful views that nobody else has seen before. So that's now available.
• 54:11
  Jessica Bowser: And then, of course, there's better access and easier access to the bottom of the Brakes Trail, and that trail takes you right past the bottom of the sandstone cliffs that most people never see, because they're standing on the top of them, and they're looking out over the gorge, but they almost never go to the bottom and get the view up of those amazing sandstone cliffs that climbers love so much. So it was a really, really fun trip, and I'm super excited for you to hear the upcoming episode that seems like a good place to pause for now, because there are still plenty more adventures ahead.
• 54:47
  Jessica Bowser: In part two, coming next week, I'll take you from Norfolk and Chincoteague to the cliffs of Shenandoah National Park, where I finally got to go rock climbing at Little Stony Man.
• 54:57
  Jessica Bowser: Then we'll head west to San Francisco for coastal hikes along. The Pacific, a visit to the towering redwoods of Muir Woods, and a few unforgettable outdoor experiences around the Bay Area. So be sure to come back next week for the rest of the journey. Virginia Outdoor Adventures is inspired by and supported by listeners like you, which is why your messages and feedback means so much to me.
• 55:21
  Jessica Bowser: You can text me directly by clicking on send Jessica a text message in your show notes. I answer questions, respond to comments, and share your feedback on the show. Never miss a new episode. Sign up for my email newsletter and receive my listener resource guide with the top podcast episodes of Virginia Outdoor Bucket List, and exclusive brand discounts for my listeners. Click on newsletter sign up in your show notes, or visit Virginia Outdoor adventures.com Thanks for listening. Until next time, Adventure On,
• 56:01
  Unknown: you.