Slept late and woke to 15C outside. Fall is definitely here. Stopped at Maryland Visitor’s Centre to get maps and info about the Skyline Drive through the Shenandoah National Park which follows the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains for 105 miles. Also learned about this pair of surveyors called Mason and Dixon who had surveyed this area and created the state division of the Mason/Dixon line which separated the south from the north and Maryland and Pennsylvania. Also the large stars on houses here that signify Acadian ancestry in Canada are merely decorations here. Something about Faith & Hope. The information person wasn’t clear about it.
Anyways, we then headed for Front Royal which is the start of the Skyline Drive. We stopped briefly in Harper’s Ferry to get our annual National Parks and Federal Recreation pass. Harper’s Ferry is a very historical place with the arrival of the first successful American railroad, John Brown’s attack on slavery, and one of the earliest integrated schools in the US. It is also the point where West Virginia, Maryland & Virginia meet. And the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers meet up here too.
The Skyline Drive is a leisurely drive (speed limit 45 mph) through beautiful wooded hills and the climb is quite dramatic with many lookouts to pull over for pictures, etc. We climbed to a height of 3368 ft and then down to a roadside stop for lunch which was 2410 ft. By then our brakes were smoking and very hot. Good timing for a stop. The temperature also dropped about 7 C degrees to 13. We decided that perhaps we would be better off on the freeway so took the next exit off the ridge. On the way down to the Shenandoah valley we had a young black bear run across the road in front of us. We couldn’t get over the trees shrouded in Virginia creeper. Rounding out all their sharp edges. It was surreal.
Through gentle hills countrywide with picturesque farms off in the distance, we made our way to a PA campsite just outside of Lexington, VA. We passed a huge area of nothing but horses and horse trailers just prior to turning into our campground. Seems they were having their largest equestrian event in their history. We felt we had stepped into the Ozarks. Just about everyone has that hillbilly type accent and so far not too knowledgeable about the rest of the country or of Canada. It’s definitely evident that we are heading south. Saw two more wild turkeys on the roadside and some small white tailed deer.
Sunday sees us going to a small town (big error - seems like it's a big place that has a humungous Nascar race track) on the Virginia/Tennessee border and we will be staying on the Tennessee side for one night (30 C when we arrived. Summer finally???) and then I’ve made reservations to stay 3 nights in Nashville. Looking forward to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment