Continued our trip to Shenandoah National Park and were greeted by fog. Quite a bit of fog. Shenandoah is a relatively narrow park, but long. It’s 105 miles long. And 101 miles of the almost 2,200 miles of the Appalachian Trail go right through the park. The park also boasts more than 500 miles of hiking trails. So, you can imagine, it’s a hikers paradise. We drove in at the southern entrance and proceeded to make our way to our camping spot for the night. 80% of the camping spots in the park are non-reservable or first come/first serve. The first campground we took a look at was Loft Mountain. It was shrouded in fog and Will wanted to move on and check out Big Meadows Campground. Finally, selected our site at Big Meadows. We were entertained watching a Boy Scout troop try to set up their tents. Must have been close to 2 hours by the time they were done and that was just tent set up. There are strict bear regulations on food storage at the campground and that night both Will and I thought we heard one checking out our site. The wind was really strong that night, but luckily didn’t bring much rain with it.
The next morning, once the sun burnt off the fog it was a perfect day for a hike. The Mill Prong hike sounded like a good one for us. We wanted to hike around 4 miles as we were back on the road. This hike takes you to Hoover’s Rapidan Camp. Started off well and came upon a deer 5 minutes into our hike. There were to be 3 stream crossings with this hike, which we really didn’t think too much about when reading the description. Came up to the first one and realized that desert hiking doesn’t really prepare you for stream crossings. But we made it across the first 2 and decided that the third one was not going to be attempted by us that day. The water was too high and running a little too fast.
We instead opted to hike back and take another route back to the car. We knew that getting back to the car would involve some road walking, but went that way anyway. Unfortunately that’s all the time we had; back on the road headed to Virginia Beach.
This time we were staying in some luxury accommodations at the Courtyard Marriott in an oceanfront 1 bedroom with “kitchen”.
Hey a little luxury every now and then is a good thing.
Found a nice restaurant for dinner, the Mayflower Café. It’s actually a Turkish/Mediterranean restaurant. My dish, the chicken marsala was excellent. Will didn’t care for his crab cake, but the rest of his seafood trio was good. Virginia Beach has a nice boardwalk with a dedicated bike path. We were a little too tired to break out the bikes, but took a stroll along the boardwalk. Went to breakfast at Pocahontas Pancakes. They have some gluten free options and I got the waffle. It’s been forever since I’ve had a waffle and it was a welcome change. Very popular breakfast place and a thumbs up from us as well.
We were only about 50 miles or so from the Jamestowne/Williamsburg area, so we away we went. We didn’t go to the Jamestown Settlement, but went to Rediscover Jamestowne, the original landing site and the National Historic Area. Because this area is part of the National Parks we were able to get a discount on admission with our annual pass. Instead of $14/each, We paid $5/each. Got there right in time for one of their tours. This one was give by a historian. He is part of a group of living historians that pose as various individuals throughout history. He was John Rolfe. Maybe you’ve heard of his wife, Pocahontas. We really learned a lot from this presentation about the first English settlement. They call this area the Rediscover Jamestowne as they found that original fort. In 1994, they found about 80% still above ground originally thought to have been underwater entirely. This is still an active archeological site where they have found numerous artifacts and graves of the first settlers. Kids, however, may have a more enjoyable time at the Jamestowne Settlement where there have actors acting out living in 1607, but we found this other one to be quite interesting. We then headed over to Williamsburg. It was after hours, but we took a stroll down the street to check things out.
Back in Virginia Beach we woke to a cloudy morning, but the rain was supposed to hold off until the afternoon, so we took advantage and set off to bike to the First Landings Park. VB is a pretty bikeable city. Besides the boardwalk they have other bike paths throughout the city. We biked down the boardwalk and picked up the Maritime Bike Trail, a left at 63rd street brings you straight to the park. There is a beach area and a few hiking trails and the Cape Henry hike/bike trail. The trail was a little sandy in places, which resulted in a little mishap for me when I couldn’t power through. I survived with a minor scrape to the leg. Nothing a little wine tasting couldn’t take of. They were having one in the hotel lobby. What a nice start to the evening.
The next morning also turned out to be wonderfully sunny, so we biked the entire boardwalk and then took off to the Military Aviation Museum. They have a nice collection of planes form WWI and WWII both Navy and Army, many of which still fly. The most interesting part was the tour that takes you to the other buildings with Luftwaffe planes and models of the WWI planes. The guide also takes you to the hanger where they are rebuilding and repairing the various aircraft.
After the tour, we were starving and had heard about a place called Big Sam’s. (See what you can learn at a wine tasting.) Highly recommend the She Crab soup and the Crab Balls. Really good. Will enjoyed his clam chowder as well.
