Day Three - VA

Sunday, May 22

We woke up this morning at 9am, which is actually pretty late for us while camping. The rain had stopped and it was sunny... with a good 30mph wind roaring through the trees. Which meant, along with the rain the night before, no hot breakfast. Lame.

Today's mission was to get through the rest of the Blue Ridge Parkway. It reminded us a lot of Yellowstone. I expected a bison to randomly appear on the road. There's almost no one else on the road right now since it's so early in the season. We had to detour near Peaks of Otter due to road construction, but the detour brought us to a McDonalds where I could satiate my McGriddle craving.

We stopped at Apple Orchard Falls because it was "just a short mile-long hike to the falls" and it was actually 3 miles roundtrip, with about 700 feet of elevation change. We went down first, to the base of the falls. Then up. That last part sucked. And the last third of a mile was ducking rain showers. (But there were two creek crossings and YAY I LOVE WATER.) I don't think we did the whole thing, because there were no 100+ stairs and the falls we saw were like, 10 feet, and definitely not 200 feet. Oh well. We regret nothing. It was good enough as it was and I really, really hate stairs.

Someone also fell and died at the main falls two months ago, so we'll call it even.

But we got some great pictures! And it was very much needed. We were both in odd moods and I guess still very stressed out, because we didn't snap back to 'normal' until we had done some heavy sweating in hauling ourselves back up that muddy trail.

The rest of the drive went pretty well. We saw a lot of rain in the distance, but never had to drive through it. It is not a fast or efficient drive, though. Not at 35-45 mph max. Gorgeous views and I enjoyed the different environments. Lots of trees and colors that we don't see in South Carolina.

At mile zero, the road changes to the Skyline Drive, which is the entrance to Shenandoah National Park. That is for tomorrow. Tonight, we drove into Charlottesville to meet some friends of mine for tasty Chinese and to sleep on their air mattress, which has a ROOF OVERHEAD and a SHOWER and a PUPPY (who is afraid of me but loves Aaron).  

Aaron also got a really questionable fortune cookie and took a picture of it overlaid on my face while I have chipmunk cheeks full of food, then posted it on Facebook and now people are asking if I'm pregnant. So there's that.

Tomorrow, we enter and camp in West Virginia, so if you never hear back from us again, start searching around Seneca Rocks and listen for the X-Files theme.

How today started: a little cloudy and hazy, a lot windy.

Then the sun came out!

In all honesty, this is what the Virginia segment of the BRP looks like: trees.

We really, really like water crossings.

The trail down to Apple Orchard falls was really pretty, I'll give it that.

This is where we stopped, called it a waterfall, and hauled back up the trail.

Back on the road!

Onion Mountain overlook.

The colors this afternoon were unbelievable.

Most of it is trees. Then you come around switchback number kajillion and boom, a view.

We got really nice views into the valleys of Roanoke and Buena Vista.

Tunnel!

The quintessential Virginia image, to me, is a ramshackle barn in the middle of a field. They're everywhere!

CLOUD PORN. MOST BEAUTIFUL STORM IS BEAUTIFUL.

The lighting and the clouds were so gorgeous.

Look carefully: there's a hawk (I think?) circling against that cloud.