I met my friend Ernani at Washington D.C. airport at midday, where we rented a white Geo Metro. We were given directions to take us west, but we did something wrong and entered Washington itself. Trying to find our way back to the road, we ended up in a kind of forced city tour, passing by the city's main sights: the Capitol, the White House, Lincoln Memorial, the Obelisk, Jefferson Memorial...
After that, it took us about 1 1/2h do arrive in Front Royal, at the northern entrance of Shenandoah National Park. We had gotten a booklet of hotel discounts at a tourist information center from the state Virginia, so we checked those with the best prices and chose one - they were all more of less the same quality.
We stopped at a 7-11 for a quick snack. I took a blackberry yogurt. Throughout the trip, I have tried lots of different flavours of yogurt - they have so many more choices there than we have here in Brazil!
Then we entered Shenandoah National Park for a first contact. The park was created in 1926 and is located on the Blue Ridge, which is part of the Appalachian Mountains. Finished in 1939, Skyline Drive is the road that crosses the park north-south, allowing views of Shenandoah Valley below.
We asked for information about what to do in those last hours of the day, maybe a place to watch the sunset, but the suggestions was on hikes and we were both too tired for that, so we simply drove about 25 miles (40 km) into the parl, then back. Trees, bends, flowers, viewpoints, and a white-tailed deer by the road, which soon disappeared into the woods - a preview of what we were going to find during our trip. I let the polarizer filter of one my lenses fall and, although I reassembled it, it didn't look good.
We had a nice dinner at The Grapevine, homestyle food that gaves us a 10% discount with out hotel key. They have many options for all tastes. I had grilled chicken with baked potato and a salad. But the best thing was undoubtely their fresh bread - I simply love bread!
Day 2 - "Three little bears crossed the road quickly in front of us, they were small and had long snouts."
We woke up early - just past 6am - and bought food at the supermarket for our breakfast and for a snack later on. We decided to take a quicker road outside the park to Luray, to visit its caverns. We arrived there at about 9am.
During 1 1/4h we were guided through the caverns, which were discovered over 100 years ago. There are both small and huge halls, with amazing stalactites and stalagmites in all forms - some even resembling draperies. One of the most amazing sights for me was a mirror pool - so still that is actually difficult to notice that we are seeing a reflection! The pond itself is very shallow. The "Fried Eggs" are the bases of where two stalagmites once stood. There is also a Wishing Well to throw coins in (coins are collected and given to charity) and in a huge hall, "The Cathedral", we saw - and heard - "The Great Stalacpipe Organ", an organ where the pipes are the columns, hit by electrically droven plungers. In the end, we had descended about 150 m, crossing about 45 of the 60 knows chambers. There are other caverns in the area, but I don't know if this is the best one - all I can say is that Luray Caverns are very interesting.
Back to Skyline Drive through its Thornton Gap Entrance, we stopped for a bagel & cheese snack right after Marys Rock Tunnel, with a view to the other side of the mountains. We kept on going south, through the green-sided road under a beautiful sunny day, admiring the vistas mainly from the car, stopping just here and there. We saw a black bear crossing the road this morning and other three later that day. Only after this I believed in the information that there are many in the park!
Shenandoah National Park has many waterfalls, but most of them recquire long hikes, so we decided to try the closest one, Dark Hollow Falls, descending 130 m along a 2.4 km-long (1.5 miles) roundtrip trail. The last few steps to reach the base of the waterfall are very steep, but I wouldn't admit seeing just the top of the fall after having gotten so far. The round trip took a bit more than 1 h.
We had read about a specialty dessert served in the park, the icecream blackberry pie, and had planned to have it at Big Meadows, one of the main service areas in the park. But to our dismay we've found out it was served only at the dinner at the lodge. As a consolation, I decided to have a blackberry sundae.
South River Falls trail is very long and not very easy, so I only ventured a little bit of it while Ernani rested in the car. As I had read, there were many flowers and the trail was quiet and beautiful. Like many of the trails in the park, this one crosses the Appalachian Trail, marked with white bars on the trees.
At Lotf Mt. overlook, I was watching the view when I saw a deer right below me. I tried to call Ernani, who was in the car, without making a sound to avoid scaring the animal away, but he was so concentrated in the maps! Soon after that we saw another deer on the other side of the parking lot. We could get reasonably close to it - it seemed used to human presence - so we could take some pictures.
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Our next stop was Blackrock Trail, an easy 40 min roundtrip hike through woods to a rocky viewpoint. Part of the trail runs along with the Appalachian Trail. The famous Appalachian Trail, over 3200 km (2000 miles) from Georgia to Maine, hiked yearly by thousands, though only a few venture to hike it all the way. For years I have wanted to feel I was doing it, and for a few minutes I really was! It was about 6pm when we left the park's south entrance, near Waynesboro, where we spent the night. Our first attempt to have dinner was deceptive - we had seen what seemed to be a nice restaurant, but it was closed, then the one next to it was empty and the menu didn't look good, so we left - the waitress did not seem disappointed with that, on the contrary... We found an Italian restaurant, Scotto's, which was a good option, though I ate far too much!
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