1. Waynesville, NC to Shenandoah State Park, VA

Waynesville NC start trip

9-23-18 Today we start Lynn's carefully planned trip to explore some parts of New England we've never seen. What an itinerary: Shenandoah State Park, VA, then to the Finger lakes in New York, onward to (briefly) visit friends and relatives in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, then  a week in Acadia National Park, ME, some time in Salem and Wareham, MA, then drift back to Waynesville sometime in mid-October. 
We're loaded for anything there is to do: Paddling, hiking, biking, reading, exploring, visiting, driving, touristing, shopping...whatever it takes. Oh, and Sheldon is coming too, so there's dog stuff to take into account. This trip will be fun.

Shenandoah State Park, VA first camp destination

 First day out was mostly just driving 7 hours in pretty countryside. We took the highway up north and east of Asheville, ending up in the Shenandoah River valley at Virginia's beautiful Shenandoah State Park. We picked our own pretty campsite, nice and flat, dry and private.

 The Park is right on the river, and this area has received MUCH rain recently, from Hurricane Florence, plus the downflow of rivers up the mountains from here. Thus, the river was ROARING, high above its banks, brown water full of fast-moving debris. Good sense kept me from trying to kayak in this situation! We hiked some, but the trails were muddy and slippery, and it was still raining, so we decided to hit the area's most highly-touted tourist attraction, Luray Cavern. 

Luray Cavern is its own tourist entertainment center: huge cavern underground (of course), with restaurant, old car museum, toy museum, fudge and gift shops, etc. all built atop the cavern to rake in the tourist dough. We went for it, and loved the Cavern. We took a guided group tour, because the guide was reputed to be informative and funny. Our guy was a little of each. We learned Stalagtites hang from the ceiling (they hang on "TITE" to the top of the cavern), while Stalagmites grow up from the floor of the cavern ('cause they "MITE" grow up to the ceiling someday). The tour was long, lots of walking on dark paths with railings, with impressive sights of all kinds of ancient rock formations formed from water action and chemical reaction. We learned that it's almost impossible to take a good photo of this stuff with a phone camera... so mostly we just looked and listened and enjoyed the uniqueness of the place. Go see it if you get a chance!

After the Cavern, we ate at their restaurant (expensive & barely adequate), and ran for the door before we succumbed to the gift shop or the fudgery. We decided to drive up the mountains to explore the world-famous Skyline Drive, which takes in the entire length of Shenandoah NATIONAL Park (different Park from where we are camped). Wonderful fun twisty drive UP the mountains to get to the park. We gained admission to the Park for FREE with our "Geezer" pass (a card which gives you free admission to all National Parks if you are old and have purchased the card in advance), and drove about 5 miles on Skyline Drive to a "scenic overlook"... here's what THAT looked like on this rainy day. 

Sooooo...there was NOT going to be any pretty driving scenery atop the mountains today! That was enough Skyline Driving for us, so we drove carefully back down the mountain & looked for other sights. Our campground, Shenandoah STATE Park, has a place called "Cullen Overlook" which is touted as the perfect place to watch sunsets. We checked it out in the rain, and were surprised by the beautiful scene it overlooks. A huge oxbow area of the Shenandoah River is spread out below you, enclosing a lush forest mixture of forest and meadows with the mountains arrayed behind that. We loved it! 

We're back now, with Lynn ready to cook supper. We're heading out tomorrow, driving to the Finger Lakes a little early, hoping for better weather and a safe place to kayak paddle. Thanks for reading this stuff! 

Here is a link to more photos of this trip, if you'd like to see them: 
LINK to NewEnglandTrip photos