It’s National Punctuation Day! Speaking as someone who reads the Chicago Manual of Style for fun, I personally am lamenting the lost skill of punctuation (i-gadgets have done us no favors). Am I the only person who actually cares whether my texts are correctly punctuated?

Got out the door by 10 AM and decided to take Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park on our destination to Staunton for a long weekend. A quintessentially stunning autumn day: clear skies, low 70s, gentle breeze. The park views are stunning, even on a bad day. We stopped at a couple of trails to hike down to waterfalls and tumbling creeks. The only problem with going down steep mountainsides at the beginning of your hike is that you have to come back up them at the end. We both brought our walking sticks, and these babies are pretty much part of my gear now. I was reminded how creaky my knees are and how much I used to hike back in Montana and how much I wish I could hike more often now and how much it bothers me that my body is getting a little on in years for the things I love. What will knee and hip surgery look like in 10-15 years (or sooner)?

In the late afternoon, we got on our bikes at the Big Meadows section of the park and rode about 2 miles along a gravel road through the meadow and into the forest. The air was rapidly cooling and the sun starting to think about going down, so we didn’t go far. But the rode is on our list to explore another time and see where it leads. We arrived in Staunton in time for supper, deciding on an Indian place, not because we had a hankering but because someone (ahem) was hangry and needed to eat immediately and this place was right by where we parked. The restaurant plugged into the iPhone had a 30-minute wait. The Indian did not disappoint—delish. Afterward we strolled through the historic downtown after dark. The town closed about 3 or 4 blocks or street to traffic, making room for the various restaurants’ tables to spill into the street. Lots of people drinking and dining this beautiful Friday evening. Our Airbnb is a cute cottage in the backyard of someone’s house in a quiet, upscale neighborhood about mile from downtown. We are going to sleep well tonight.