Oh Shenandoah...

Sunday morning (August 2nd), we got everyone's food, etc. sorted out and packed up the car to leave the Outer Banks. Side note: Sometimes it seems like there's no way everything will fit in the car and sometimes we wonder if we've forgotten something since there's so much space left over. Very strange. Anyway, we headed back out towards the mainland and drove to Shenandoah National Park, about 5-6 hours or so. It wasn't that long of a day, but it really felt like one: we got slightly confused on a scenic back road, the rest area we were counting on was closed, the speed limit changed constantly (and no one else seemed to notice), etc. We did learn that eastern VA is famous for its peanuts (who knew?) and that everyone should visit the Virginia Diner (sadly, we gave it a miss), and that Virginia is, apparently, for lovers. Hmmm.

We got to Shenandoah around 4, were met by the welcoming committee (see the first photo in the last post), and got our tent set up. It had stopped raining just a bit earlier and we actually didn't get rained on at all while we were there, which was fortunate. We went down to the camp store to get provisions and were confronted with the realization that there was essentially nothing there that we could eat – 3 different varieties of pork and beans, however. Virginia doesn't believe in vegetarians. We got a few things and resolved to make the best of it. After all of this, we decided to go for a hike to Dark Hollow Falls - the waterfall that was closest to the camp - but just past the campground, we ran into Mama Bear #2 and 3 cubs. 7 bears in 3 hours...we decided that we really didn't want to go that way after all so we went over to the other side of the campground and stood on the Appalachian Trail for a few minutes. Which wasn't really all that interesting, so after a while we decided to give the first trail another try and this time it was bear-free. We hiked all the way down to the waterfall, narrowly missed being run over by various teenagers, got some pictures (some of which had to be cleverly framed to avoid all the other people taking pictures), and headed back up. Halfway up we saw an owl next to the trail – I got a photo of it just as a family with two little girls came up behind us. The owl flew off but the older girl (8, maybe?) saw where it had landed and STARTED THROWING ROCKS AT IT?!?! Virginia is lovely but at this point I started thinking that I could do without some of the people in it....

We had a splendid chorus of owls directly over our tent that night: I slept through it but William heard them and managed to record some of it. Owls notwithstanding, we got up on Monday ready for another day of exploring. We went over to the Visitor's Center where they had a fascinating display on the history of the park, including lots of information on the Civilian Conservation Corps. We had some ideas about going out to one of the picnic areas for lunch and playing a few tunes while there but the large clouds of gnats hovering around made William reconsider the thought of playing the flute outdoors, as that sort of thing tends to make breathing difficult. In the afternoon we hiked to Lewis Falls – it was a fairly difficult hike since the trail is steep and rocky, but we did enjoy it and the falls were worth seeing. Part of the way back was on the Appalachian Trail and so now we can say that we've hiked it! Yeah...not really.

That evening after dinner we reconsidered the idea of playing tunes since the bugs had mostly disappeared and so we sat at our campsite for about an hour and a half and played through everything we could think of. And...remember when I was complaining a few paragraphs ago about the people in Virginia? We had all sorts of people stop by and compliment us on our playing and they were nice and thoughtful and appreciative and it was just fabulous. When we camped outside Yosemite (was that only 2 months ago??) we played a bit and no one even acknowledged our existence, so we were really touched that so many of our fellow campers took the time to talk to us.

Tuesday morning we had breakfast at Big Meadows Lodge – I seem to have re-discovered grits, after refusing to eat them for years – and headed south to Peaks of Otter Lodge. More on that later...