Country Roads, Take Me Home..............

Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River..........

Why is it that being in the mountains makes me sing John Denver songs? (much to David's dismay)

7-18-11:  Left PA today, crossed the Mason-Dixon Line, drove through Maryland and the Catoctin Mtns, crossed the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers (which meet at one point) went through West Virginia, Harpers Ferry, and arrived in Luray, VA – the Shenandoah Valley!  Oh so beautiful. We traveled on the Stonewall Jackson Mem Hwy.  Talk about your historical markers! This part of the country is loaded with them.  Our campground – Country Waye – is surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mtns in the Appalachians. Yes, Lisa S., I feel like I wake up in a postcard each day!

7-20-11:  I could live here!!  Even with the heat wave, what a country! If you are in Luray and you like sweet tea – Uncle Buck's is the place to go.  Yummmm, that's the best sweet tea I've had since I was a little girl.

Today David, Rocky, and I took the Skyline Drive through the Shenandoah Nat'l Park. Great CCC history and structures here.  It's 105 miles and took us 6 ½ hours!  We entered through the north entrance.  Sadly, it was quite hazy.  Although I'm sure this major heatwave had a lot to do with that, we read at one of the overlooks that most of the haze is created by human polution.  Even so, the views were magnificent.  And what's great about this forest is that most of the trees are still green! We've been to so many since we've started traveling that have dead or diseased trees.  We saw few pines in comparison to the hardwoods, so I'm guessing Fall is spectacular!  Around the 13 mile marker we saw a whitetail buck with velvet antlers trying to cross the road.  He was a beauty.  We'd been told to expect to see lots of deer and black bear.   Until the buck, we were beginning to think the only wildlife there were bumblebees and butterflies!  Although the temp was close to 100 in the Valley, it quickly dropped to the 70's in the mtns. Stayed between 73-77 all day.  So we had our windows down for most of the drive and could smell the honeysuckle and beautiful wildflowers – which were abundant.   Sounded like a bird haven in some spots – lots of chirping and singing. We stopped at dang near every overlook except for a couple we couldn't get to due to road construction. At Rattlesnake Point, we saw what looked like thousands of blue ridges!  The highest point was over 4000 in elev.  One of the prettiest spots on the road was Mary's Rock Tunnel.  It was made in 1932.  At Franklin Cliffs Overlook we saw an Amish girls' day out – a vanload of just the girls having lunch in the shade.   David sure wanted to stop and see if they had some Trail Bologna.  At Big Meadow we stopped for a little break and saw “Iron Mike” - a statue memorializing the “boys” of the CCC.  Saw a pretty good size fox.  Nice. Still no bear. Toward the south end of the drive, we started seeing lots of beautiful kudzu. Some of the prettiest I've ever seen is at home between Fulton, AR and Saratoga, AR.  But this had that beat. Just miles and miles of it and so thick! Welp no black bear sightings – UNTIL we got on the interstate to go home! A small one ran across all 4 lanes of traffic.  It was so cute and arrived safely on the other side. Drove home through some breathtaking Virginia farmland, swam a bit at the rv park, then watched the sunset behind the Appalachians. I could live here!

7-21-11:  Drove over to Harrisonburg, VA.  It's a cute little town full of history and tiny roads. Ate at a great place called Dave's.  Drove through Shenandoah, VA and saw an abundance of my fave trees – really big, blossoming Mimosas.

7-22-11:  We drove back to the Skyline Drive today to do a little hiking.  Would've loved to have given part the Appalachian Trail a try.  There are so many great trails in the Nat'l Park. The heatwave here is pretty serious, as it is in most of the country.  Although it's cooler in the high country, we chose a very easy one, The Limberlost Trail.  The ferns grow up here like grass.  Tall and lush. We saw several chipmunks, but no bears. We did come upon a trail ride.  I was jealous. But we were getting some good exercise.  After the hike we drove over to Big Meadow for lunch. Ran into a couple of friends from the rv park, Ted and Karen.  As we were leaving there, we saw twin fawns in the brush.  Sooo sweet. Look for their spots in my pix.  Headed on out through Thornton Gap and lo and behold!  A fairly good size black bear!  So beautiful!  Just running through a field and watching us so he could beat us across the road.  We got a very good look at him with his cute little face and ears.  But couldn't get the camera out quickly enough to get a face shot.  The pic you see here is once he got to the side of the road.  It's been a good day.

7-24-11:  David went to the Luray Caverns this morning.  I did laundry – yep, I sure know how to have a good time.  But I did get a t-shirt out of the deal as if I had been there with him.  He said it was pretty interesting - maybe not a do-again. There is some interesting history of the caverns if you want to google.  Be sure to look at the story about the organ which plays on the formations.  A wishing well in the caverns has accumulated a lot of money.  Each year they clean the money out of it and donate to charity.  Dollar bills are also thrown in and those are taken out every couple of days.  The sign said to date there has been about $900,000 plus donated from this well. There is also a car museum at the caverns.   He got some awesome pix which I'm including.

Stayed tuned for North Carolina and Tennessee.


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Stonewall and Mary Anna