Shenandoah National Park

It was an early morning for everyone. We delivered Laura to the Baltimore airport at 7 AM and Greg to his bus stop at about 7:30 AM. We had a good time with Laura and Greg. Greg was very polite, and a good conversationalist. We were happy to introduce him to some new sights in Washington. It seemed like Laura had a good break from work during the 9 days she was with us and I’m sure she appreciated the time to get to know Greg a little better (though it probably would have been better without those parents always in sight).

View from Skyline Drive

Then we headed off to Shenandoah National Park and the Skyline Drive. The drive follows the ridge line of the Appalachian Mountains. The road was in excellent shape and had recently been repaved, but with all the ups and downs, twists and turns, you can only go about 35 MPH. So the 105 mile length took over 3 hours to traverse. The scenery was superb – lots of views into the valleys – rolling farm land, grassy meadows, multiple mountain ridges, treed wilderness, or towns, the sights changed frequently. Then we started on the Northern most leg of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The road wasn’t quite as good, but you could get up to 45 MPH. There are lots of pull-offs for trails, overlooks and picnic areas. Occasionally it was very obvious that we were on the ridge because you could see down to the valleys on both sides. As we traveled, we were in some real heavy rains, but it cooled the temperatures down into the 60’s. We’ll sleep with a blanket tonight! After our long day, we were eagerly awaiting our campground, Peaks of Otter. But we missed the turn-off, had to go about 3 miles to find a place to double back, then finally found it. While I made reservations to be safe, there were only about 3-4 campers in the whole campground. We didn’t like the site I had reserved, it was a steep, pull through, and so we cheated and took the adjoining campsite, a flat, back-in site.