Rained out of Shenandoah National Park

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So, I should be lying in my tent right about now, exhausted from a day of hiking along trails in Shenandoah National Park. Instead I'm here sitting in a hotel room in Wilksboro, NC with sleeping bags, clothes, pillows and the tent lying about the room drying out. Here's why:


The drive down to Shenandoah took us longer than it should have. First we got lost trying to leave DC (because of our wonderfully incorrect mapquest directions). Lucky for us we have maps to refer to (and Evy is a great navigator), we eventually found the highway we needed to get on and were on our way south. After that the drive was pretty much uneventful until we got close to the park. One of the little highways we were supposed to take was closed (due to a huge fire in the middle of it from an accident... I really hope everyone was ok). Due to that we had to turn around, pull out our map and find an alternate route. That alternate route was then closed due to an accident (although we couldn't see anything and it looked like it was due to construction... who knows). Luckily they had a detour for us on a random little curvy road. We finally got to the park entrance, but could hardly see anything due to the fog. It seemed as if we had driven right into a cloud. =(

We found our camp site without any problems and set up our tent (anticipating rain later that evening). After that we decided to walk over to the lodge and spend the rest of the afternoon/evening there playing cards and relaxing (it was sprinkling and quite foggy, so we decided to relax that evening and hopefully do some hiking today). Unfortunately that would not be the case. It was nice sitting in the "living room" of the lodge relaxing and playing a few games. Around dinner time though we headed back to our campsite to grab some food. It was too cold and wet outside (even though it hadn't quite started to really rain yet), so we ate in the car (quite a feat considering how packed it is with all of our stuff!!) I'm sure we would have been quite a funny sight to see had anyone passed by at that point.

When we were finished it had started to rain (although it was a very light rain), so we packed up the food, grabbed our umbrellas and headed back to the lodge. We spent several hours there playing cards and just enjoying the fire in the fire place and the gorgeous view from the huge windows.... of the dense fog. By the time we left it was raining pretty hard, so we walked as quickly as we could back to our tent. The inside of the tent was only slightly wet when we got back. However, by the time we got ready for bed and got in the tent, we were pretty wet ourselves. It didn't stop raining the entire night!!!

When we woke up this morning, things were damp, but all in all we were pretty dry considering how it was coming down. We decided to pack up and leave a day earlier than originally planned. By the time we got everything rolled up and packed back in the car we were all sopping wet, as were all of or things!!

Unfortunately we didn't get to see much Shenandoah National Park (or the first part of the Blue Ridge Parkway for that matter). We only caught glimpses when the fog would let up just a little. We began our drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway this morning (a parkway that connects Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountain National Parks). From what we were able to glimpse, it is an absolutely gorgeous drive! It has lots of overlook points, but unfortunately it rained the entire morning and we were engulfed in fog, so our views were all white =( This is definitely a drive I want to try again though!

Late this afternoon it finally began to clear up and the sun actually came out for a bit!! =)By then however, we had already descended quite a bit into a valley, so our views were not as impressive as I'm sure they would've been earlier in the day. We're now in a town about 20 miles off of the parkway (there are few places to stay along the parkway (and no gas), so we had to come into a town to get a hotel for the night. We made it a little over half-way down the parkway (and crossed from Virginia into North Carolina) today. Tomorrow should be sunny (at least we're hoping so), so we should be able to enjoy the parkway much more and stop along the way. The plan is to get to Great Smoky Mountain by tomorrow evening. Hopefully by then our stuff will have dried out and it won't be raining there.

It's unfortunate that we weren't able to see Shenandoah, but this area is still gorgeous (even when viewed through the haze of fog). In fact in some rare instances that we could actually see for a distance, it was neat to look out over the mountains and see clouds lifting out of the trees of the surrounding peaks. The fog seemed to add a tinge of mysticism to the lush green landscape. =) I'm looking forward to hopefully having the chance to enjoy the beauty of the Appalachians dry and uninhibited by fog tomorrow and the next couple days in Great Smoky Mountain National Park. =)

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Photos

Our dining table
Eating in the car

Photo 5
The fog actually doesn't look too bad here