It rained a lot last night with some wind as well. But this morning we awoke to a fresh blue sky with sweeping white clouds and the sun appearing over the mountains. Beauty day to head to Shenandoah National Park!
Our parking spot at the beautiful winery in the daylight!
Amelia and I had bought a small bag of flour at the Giant yesterday so that I could make some crepes. This was our first batch of crepes in the Rig this trip. Yummers... complete with nutella option, or lemon/sugar. Jonathan went for a little walk around the property and saw some deer. He texted me to let me know and I sent the kids out to find him.
We set off around 9:30am for Shenandoah. Here's a couple of the interesting signage we saw along the route.
Drove back to Sperrysville town and had a quick stop at the NAPA we saw to see if they might be able to do the brakes check. Kids jumped out to go into the shop office because they saw a sweet old dog on a chair in the window. They weren't able to check the brakes for us, but Jonathan was able to buy some small bulbs for the sidelights. Amelia reported back that the dog's name was MicroChip. Cute. His tag read, "I am MicroChipped" and we had to explain kindly what that meant.
Skyline Drive was gorgeous, with lots of pull outs where you could stop and admire the amazing virginia views. (You could imagine how splendid it would be in a few weeks with all the colours changing). We had the luxury of stopping when and where we wanted, with no other cars to navigate around most of the time. Kids had their little "phones" at the ready for taking their own photos to edit and enjoy.
Look! you can see some leaves changing colour on the left! Yahoo!
Pulled up to Big Meadows Campground in the park. The front entrance at the Thornton Gap showed that they has spots available ($30/night) and close to the Visitor Centre and nature trails. At the campsite (D160) the kids got right to work on their Junior Ranger booklets. They take their books quite seriously and this particular program was really well done. The ranger who gave it to them explained the things they had to complete (attend a ranger talk) and then they could choose 5 or more other pages to finish in order to earn a Junior Ranger badge.
The drive we did today along Skyline. Thornton Gap to Big Meadows Campground.
We got settled (I've no idea where the photo of our rig in it's campspot went... will see), and then rode bikes at 1:10pm down to the Visitor Centre to make it in time for the Poison in the Park ranger talk. It was the same ranger who gave them the books... she was great and talked about poisonous vs. venomous. We learned that there are redbacked salamanders in the park that were poisonous, and also that Monarchs in the park feed on the milkweed (and lay eggs and form chrysalis on them) and by eating the poisonous milkweek, they too become poisonous if eaten by birds, bears, other animals. It would take a lot to cause a cardiac arrest, but makes the animals have an upset stomach.
Jonathan spotted some deer at the side of the road along the drive. Amelia took a fantastic photo with her little camera. I'll have to get her to pass it along to me so I can post it. She's very proud of it.
After the 1:30pm ranger talk and books signed officially by the ranger, we locked our bikes up at the Visitor Centre and walked the Nature Story Trail over to the Dark Hollow Falls trail... a shortish, but neat hike/walk to a waterfall.
After the walk down to Dark Hollows, we hiked back up the hill to the Story Nature trail again. It was decided that the kids and Jonathan would walk along it back to the bikes and ride back up the bike path we came down, and I would walk up the remainder of the Story Nature Trail that led back up 0.6miles to the campground. I wanted to do it, but was a little wary of all the "Bear in Area" signs and being on my own. I mustered up my courage and said bye to the gang and started walking up, with no cell service, no walkie-talkie, and no other hikers/walkers to be seen! eek! It was a beautiful walk in the forest on a well marked trail and it wasn't long at all before I came to a fork in the path and saw a small group of deer in the path I needed to walk along. They were lovely (white tail deer, I believe) and just looked up at me and moseyed on over to the side into the thin trees as I let them know I needed to pass. The rest of the trail was super nice, but still a tad unnerving with the idea that I could come across a bear. Made it safe and sound back to to the RV just moments before the kids rolled up. Jonathan sent them ahead the short distance from the wood shack where he was getting some wood.
We hung out a bit... I had a snooze while kids worked more on their Ranger booklets. By 5:15pm we mustered our energy to bundle up and head out for a short walk across the campground to check out a bit of the famous Appalachian Trail. The trail goes from Maine to Georgia and part of it runs along the ridge of the Shenandoah National Park. I was super curious to check it out and walk a bit of it.
Back at the picnic grounds beside the campground we found some informative boards to learn more about some of the flora and fauna of the area. An adorable group of little American Goldfinches in their winter plummage (apparently) were hopping around putting on a show. Ollie was quite amused by the one that hovered and picked dead bugs off the front grill of someone's parked car.
Jonathan lit a fire with the wet and smokey wood we got in our bundle. Then fried up some mahi-mahi for our fish taco feast which we ate outside in the cold temperatures... I had actually dug out our big bag of winter jackets and touques and gloves today! it was apparently about 10c
Kiddos had the idea to come up with a tinfoil holder to put their saved-up babybel cheese wax into and melt to pour into some hand made plastercine moulds. They enjoyed the experiment very much and looked forward to seeing the cooled results in the morning.
After bringing in all the experiments and the dishes from dinner, the kids tucked into their Ranger books again, and I read some more of the Zortman histories... eager to get the booklet back to Candy in Zortman! I've had it for well over a month now. Right before bedtime, Oliver got out the scissors and asked if I wanted to cut his hair. He seemed almost serious, so I said sure! He laughed and said he was just kidding. His hair is SO long... bangs well below his chin, and the back has about 3" past the nape of his neck. He took the scissors and trimmed off some of his bangs himself. then chopped some more off so you can see his face now! It came up that he'd been mistaken as a girl on three occasions recently on this trip. Once at Cherry Hill a few days ago when an elderly gentlemen said, "what do you girls think of that?"... and then apparently this evening when he and amelia were riding bikes to the RV after the walk, a woman with her corgi commented, "Ah! here come the girls!" as they biked by. He had a giggle about it, but I think he decided that trimming his bangs might help change his look a bit.
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