Virginia.

The next day we crossed into Virginia, we had been in Virginia back in September 2006 so we were not increasing our state count. Virginia is full of history, the first permanent British settlement in 1607 was at Jamestown and at Appomattox they agreed to give this ‘united states’ thing an honest try. These eastern states were all heavily involved in the civil war but the bulk of the battles were fought on Virginian soil and there are numerous historical plaques as well as the Arlington National Cemetery in the state. The historic triangle of Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown are all in Virginia but we were heading for the rugged Blue Ridge Mountains.

At the visitor centre we picked up information, wandered around their historic buildings museum, watched a film about the German, Dutch and British settlers and resisted temptation in the gift shop, the local toffee looked extremely good.

Shenandoah National Park was our destination; 197,438 acres authorised in 1926 when more than 100,000 young men served in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as part of President Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ to create the park as we see it today. We turned off I81 and entered the park at the Swift Run Gap Entrance; our Inter Agency Park Pass that we purchased for $50 last October at the Badlands National Park in South Dakota got us in for free. We estimate that that investment has saved us hundreds of dollars of entrance fees over the last eleven months. The main thoroughfare through the park is the Blue Ridge Parkway which runs for 469 miles from the Shenandoah National Park in the north to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the south.

It is a two lane ‘blacktop’ with a speed limit of 35mph and 105 miles of the Parkway winds along the crest of the mountains through the length of the Park where it is called the Skyline Drive. We turned north to Big Meadows Campground and the sign at the entrance to the campground again warned us that we were in ‘Bear Country’, between 300 and 600 black bears make their home in the park. At the registration station the lovely lady ranger, Heather, found us a site and warned us that there had been black bear and skunk activity in the area and not to leave food outside overnight.

We set up; got the motorbike off and late that afternoon 3 buck white tailed deer strolled into the campground and foraged for acorns, apparently unafraid of all the people watching and taking photos of them. We didn’t see any bear or skunks but the next morning a black bear was seen in a tree in the north corner of the campground, evidently he is a regular visitor!

We didn’t see the bear he had come and gone before we were up, instead we went for a ride out on the motorbike north up Skyline Drive. The sign at Mary’s Rock Tunnel built in 1932 said it had 12’8” clearance but it didn’t look that high so we decided we would take the RV back out of the park the same way we had come in.

At 3,680 feet Skyland Lodge is at the highest point on Skyline Drive, it was opened as a resort in 1937 although it had been a private residence for many years before that. The entire interior structure including the panelling is made from native chestnut trees which are now virtually extinct due to the chestnut blight that arrived in 1905.

The next day we went for a walk, the Monarch Butterfly abounds in the park and the Appalachian Trail runs right through the campground. The AT stretches for 2,175 miles through 14 states from Georgia to Maine, but we were content to walk a short part of it down to Dark Hollow Falls. AT facts compliments of the parks visitors guide ‘Shenandoah Overlook’ are; - the first thru-hiker was Earl Shaffer in 1948, in 1965 he did it again and in 1998 he became the oldest thru-hiker by completing it at the age of 79. Carrying a denim bag and wearing sneakers Emma “Grandma” Gatewood became the first woman to complete the entire hike alone in 1955 at the age of 67; she was also the first person to do it twice in 1957. Bill Irwin a blind hiker completed it with his dog, Orient, in 1990.

DOWN was fine, we followed a family of white tailed dear momentarily, along a winding path that followed one of the streams that fed the falls.

Which are more spectacular in the spring when the water levels are higher. (Allegedly)

The climb back UP was not fine, we climbed 400 feet in ¾ mile, some sections were stepped, and others were a series of hairpins, while other sections were just a steep climb! The CCC had kindly left resting seats made from logs or rocks along the way, the difficultly was finding one not already occupied but an exhausted walker. Luckily most of the path was in the shade of the trees otherwise the heat would have made it even harder to complete the climb. When we returned to the campground the talk was a black bear mother and 3 cubs had been seen at the other campground in the south of the park.

The next day one of the nicer camp sites became vacant and we arranged with the lovely lady ranger Heather to change sites for the rest of our stay. Once we had relocated Dave did some mine sweeping and found a huge pile of fire wood, some of which was still warm and with a little help reignited.

Later that afternoon the 3 buck white tailed deer returned and spent some time around our site looking for acorns.

The fire wood lasted 3 days and Dave cooked supper ‘for free’

We had still not seen a bear and this park was going to be our last chance, so VERY early the next morning we headed out on the motorbike, first to the northern corner of our campground in search of the ‘regular visitor’ and then south to the other campsite in search of the mother and 3 cubs. We saw plenty of white tailed deer including some young ones who still had their white spots, but no bears. We came back deflated and spent our last night around our camp fire until the last of the wood had gone.

The next morning I did the washing, watched wild turkeys meander through the campsites and went to see the huge hornet’s nest that had been spotted in a tree on the other side of the campground. Dave packed up and we loaded the motorbike, we said goodbye to Heather and she said we had been looking too hard to see a bear. We would see one when we least expected it, well we were leaving so that would not happen now.

We turned south down Skyline Drive so as to avoid the tunnel and we were talking about our destination when, just as Heather had predicted I saw a Black Bear, it was a juvenile, probably not on it’s own, but I didn’t see any others, but that didn’t matter, I had seen a Black Bear! It was trotting through the trees beside the road, probably disturbed by the RV and making for its companions. As sods law would have it, Dave couldn’t see it from his side of the RV and I didn’t have time to take a photo! We debated about turning around and going back but it would probably be long gone so we continued on our way out of the park.

We turned north in Ruckersville through Culpepper, the home of Virginia’s only legal moonshine distillery, then west through Fredericksburg to Monroe Bay Campground on the banks of the Potomac River; in an area they call the ‘Northern Neck’. Originally explored in 1607 the communities are joining in the state-wide celebrations of the 400^th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement. Unfortunately the campground did not live up to its description, it was too late to find some where else so we set up, had supper and an early night.

In the morning we headed off and took a detour to George Washington Birthplace National Monument, the first president of the USA. It wasn’t until we started to read the history of his family that we realised there was more of a connection with us and the UK than we knew. George Washington’s great grandfather Col. John Washington was born at Sulgrave Manor, Northamptonshire just 5 miles from where we used to live in Banbury.

The visitors centre even carries leaflets from Sulgrave Manor which I had visited one Christmas some time ago. Some of the contents of the house may have come from England but as the original house burned down on Christmas Day 1779 much of its history was lost. The family were tobacco farmers, slave owners, and married into the local aristocracy, and the rest as they say is History!

We continued south west down the side of the Potomac River to Westmoreland State Park, halfway between George Washington’s birth place and Stratford Hall the birth place of Robert E Lee, where we stayed for 3 days doing the final wash and clean, inside and out ready for the hand over to the shipping agent. We had arranged with Seabridge International to deliver the RV to them on Friday 14^th September for their sailing on September 20^th. That was just a week away and the days were disappearing very fast, we gave away the dehumidifier to a couple who had just bought their first RV, which was a Winnebago, and started to work out what we were going to take with us and what we were going to pack away.

We did manage a walk down to the beach and had a paddle in Chesapeake Bay which is almost the Atlantic! This meant we had dipped our toes in the oceans on both sides of the USA. When we got back to the campground Dave did his mine sweeping trick again and we had huge camp fires each evening, although we did eat indoors to avoid the biters.

Traditional log cabins are an alternative form of accommodation in the park, primitive camping with all the comforts of home!