Oh Shenandoah

Apparently there was a loose connection in the air conditioner unit. It took until about noon to get it repaired and then we were on the road to Harrisonburg, VA. Instead of making the entire journey on the (soulless) interstate highway, we opted to try the first stretch of Skyline Drive, the northern portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway. This historic road runs along the crest of Blue Ridge Mountains through Shenendoah National Park. This time, we weren't turned away from our scenic quest—although the National Park Service gladly collected our $15 fee. We drove just the first 31-mile stretch from Front Royal to VA-211. The beauty of scenery was as stunning as its reputation foretold, but the experience was even better than expected because there was almost no traffic at all. Skyline Drive is intended to be a slow-down-and-enjoy-it road with a speed limit of 35 MPH. It's a 2-lane parkway, but it has very wide lanes and well-designed shoulder areas where you can pull out it you want to let impatient traffic pass. A stone fence borders most of the drive and gave me a comforting feeling of separation between the road and the dropoff just beyond. Scenic overlooks also appear every few miles. We took almost all of those and soaked in the view. It was rather hazy this day, so the visibility was somewhat limited. I can only imagine how magnificent the views would be under CAVU conditions. I hope that we get to drive another section of this road later in our trip. It extends all the way to Cherokee, NC—469 miles down the road.

Overlooks along Skyline Drive