An Up and Down Week

 It's been an odd week here in Virginia.  We arrived with the intention of meeting a fellow blogger, but continuing health issues on her end put the kibosh on that.  We were saddened by the fact because we had been talking about meeting for the past two years, but certainly Denny and I didn't want to use up her meager energy resources.


We're parked backed up to the north fork of the Shenandoah River just a few miles north of the Shenandoah National Park, so naturally a trip to the park was on our agenda.  Which means that the weather absolutely refused to cooperate and it rained for most of the week.  On Monday the skies cleared in the morning so Denny and I hopped into the truck for a brief foray into the park, knowing we had to keep it fairly short since we had a 2 PM tee time in the afternoon.  The views from the various overlooks within the first five miles of the park were wonderful and while the air wasn't fall-crisp the humidity was low enough to get some decent photos.

We bumped into a man that had stopped in the middle of the road, finally pulling off so we could go by and asked if perhaps he had seen a bear to cause him to stop like that.  Indeed he had, but his camera wasn't ready so he missed his shot.  And we were that close to having seen the bear also.

It was shortly after that that our luck ran out and we ran into rain clouds at the 2400 foot level of the hills and there were to be no more photographs or magnificent views from the scenic overlooks--the fog/clouds totally obliterated the roadway and we crept along for another twenty miles before exiting the park to return to the campground.

 

We did get to see a waterfall in our travels--it's just that it happened to be on the eighteenth green of the Blue Ridge Shadows Golf Course where we played later that afternoon. Oh well, beggars can't be chosers!

 

Another disappointment this week was in the fact that I had to cancel our reservations to camp on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  Hurricane Irene destroyed large sections of Highway 12 on the Outer Banks and we wouldn't be able to get to our campground as the road repairs have not yet been completed.  So there's another item to put on our "someday" list.

What we have gotten accomplished are minor "honey do" jobs and routine maintenance on Black Beauty  so we're hoping our fuel mileage will increase once more with the new fuel filters and oil change.  The tires on the truck and the rig have both been checked because we're pulling out today, heading for Williamsburg.  The last time we were in the Williamsburg area we stayed at a campground that was located right next to the railroad tracks and at 2:30 in the morning we were awakened by the blast of a train whistle and thought we were going to get run down it sounded so close!  Even closer was a poor young couple in a tent literally right next to the tracks (which were actually hidden by a thick line of trees and bushes)--when we spoke to them the next morning they truly thought they were going to die because it sounded to them like the train was right on top of them!  Memories!

And I guess Denny and I will have to eat the entire apple/blueberry pie he baked for Skippy all by ourselves.  The sacrifices we make, sometimes!