Driving the Skyline Parkway

     I have just come in to a warm camper after sitting around our campfire.   I wonder how many campfires I have sat around and how many places – too many to count.  There have been so many times when I went from the warmth of the fire into a very chilly sleeping bag.  I am grateful to be crawling into a warm bed tonight was the temperature dips into the low 40s.

     It has been a beautiful day.  Warm sunshine and light breezes.  We drove along much of the Skyline Parkway and stopped at wayside overlooks, the Visitor Center and Skyland Lodge.  We usually try to have a meal at one of the old lodges in each park.  This one was not so huge, but had a dining room with windows on three sides that looked out over the Shenandoah Valley.  A wonderful view and very nice lunch.  The lodge was actually one of the reasons that the park is in existence.  Visitors to Skyline thought that the area would make a good park – similar to the western national parks which were already attracting so many visitors.  In the late 20’s more and more people had cars and were interested in traveling.

     A commission was formed to look into acquiring land to build the park.  Although the area was rugged and remote, dozens of mountain families owned farms and timber acreage that was proposed to be part of the park.  A school teacher came one year to set up a school for the mountain children.  She wrote a paper which claimed that the people living in the mountains were terribly poor, uneducated and had no social structure and support.  Her paper became justification for an act which turned their lands over to the National Park service after “proper compensation.”  This was highly contested but, by 1935, Skyline Parkway was completed and the new park had over a million visitors.

     World War II and gas rationing slowed down the rate of visitors, but since the park is only 85 miles from Washington D.C. it is still one of the most visited parks in the system.  There were not that many people on the roads today so we had a wonderful time stopping to take pictures, watch the wildlife and wander down bits of the Appalachian Trail that crisscross the parkway.  There are still only a few people in the campground so we have been enjoying the quiet and watching deer walk up and down the roads like they own the place.    

    We drove to an overlook that looks west to get some sunset pictures.  The air is very clear after a couple days of rain so we are getting a great view without the smog.  It is very cold tonight, but beautiful.