Shenandoah and The Blue Ridge Parkway

We left Washington on Monday, having picked up a hire car at the airport, and drove into Virginia to the Shenandoah National Park. It was very pretty with views of mountains all around. This was our accommodation on the first night, The Skyland Resort, quite basic but the view was good. It was very cold and wind though, and Caitlin didn't like the fact that there was no internet in the room.

 On Tuesday we drove down the Skyline Drive. If you look closely you can just about see the bear that walked across the road in front of us. We also encountered a turkey and several deer. When we left the park we drove straight on to the Blue Ridge Parkway, another long scenic road through the mountains, until we got to Lexington.

 We wanted to go the Drive-In Movie theatre but it was closed so we did a Ghost Tour instead. One and a half hours of walking round Lexington and stopping to listen to tales of ghost that had been seen including cats, dogs and Robert E Lee's horse. We also ventured into the cemetery where we saw the statue of Stonewall Jackson shake its head. It was entertaining, Ellie laughed lots.

 We drove across the state line into North Carolina - look, the line is actually marked on the road!

 This was my favourite place, the New River Inn and Cottages, Glendale Springs. The lady had messed up our booking when we got there and put someone else in the two bedroom cottage, so we got the three bedroom cottage instead. It was lovely and I really enjoyed sitting on the swingseat, drinking beer and reading my book in the sunshine. I would have liked to spend longer there. (I'm not sure this is the best picture though - its hard to tell when they're only little icons on a little computer)

Our wettest day was Thursday. We went to Grandfather Mountain and Linville Falls. This is Carl clambering over rocks to get a better photo. That's how high up we were. The Parkway is a lovely road, and after this we drove up even higher along mountain ridges and right into the clouds at 5500ft and more, but after hours of not being able to see further than about ten meters all around I was quite glad to get back down again.