Shenandoah National Park

     It’s Tuesday.  I need to keep track of what day it is.  It is easy to get confused when we are on the road for a long time.  The weather forecast for today was ominous.  We had rain all night last night – steady, but not too hard.  Then today the forecast was for thunderstorms, strong winds, downpours, flooding and a tornado watch.  Not such great traveling weather.  Fortunately, it was only raining a bit as we packed up.  I am always grateful for good waterproof boots, rain pants and rain jackets.  At least we were dry under all our rain gear as we started our drive.

     We found the wind about 20 miles from Gettysburg.  It bounced the camper around and made it hard to drive. Then by the time we got to the interstate we found the heavy rain.  At times we could only see the truck ahead of us.  Finally, we got to the Welcome to Maryland rest stop and pulled off for a break.  The rain subsided and we drove on through West Virginia to the Welcome to Virginia rest stop after once again hitting a huge rain squall.  This was a four state, multiple thunderstorm, and three big accidents on the interstate, day.

     By the time we left the interstate to drive into the hills, the rain had let up.  The drive up into Shenandoah National Park and onto Skyline Parkway through the park was just beautiful.  The trees are all huge hardwoods – Oaks, maples, ash – and they were dripping with rain.  A heavy mist drifted between the hills.  We saw lots of small branches and leaves down, but the wind that had ripped through the park earlier was gone.

     We had a reservation at Loft Mountain Campground.  When we got to the campground NO ONE WAS HERE.  No ranger at the check-in and, at first we thought, no campers either.  However, as we go to our reserved site we found a dozen other RV’s.  A few other hardy souls enjoying the complete peace of this empty campground.  Our reserved site was tight.  Too tight as it turned out and we took at little bark off a tree trying to get back out of the driveway.  However, with an almost empty campground we had our pick of another site with fewer trees and a longer driveway.  Perfect!

     Now night is falling, the trees are still dripping, it's chilly and the fog has thickened, and it is so quiet.  Nice.