Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Third Day - Fallingwater Cascades

I stopped at a turnout where it claimed a there was a waterfall. It was somewhere around a half mile to the falls. The top of the falls, it appears. It certainly seemed longer than that to get to the bottom of the falls. It was a bit of a hike and I saw no other people there.


Along the trail.





The upper cascades.



The lower falls.



The Third Day - Along the Blue Ridge

Unlike Skyline Drive, there are numerous roads connecting to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I decided to take a drive down one of them. It was a gravel road with a steep grade. The camera is being held level here. The road actually rises that much and seems steeper than it appears in this picture.




Back into the soup.

The Third Day - Along the Blue Ridge, Otter Lake

The Sky began to clear and I thought I might be in for some nice weather. Alas, it was just a brief encounter with the sun.








Otter Lake. I didn't see any otters.



The Third Day - Along The Blue Ridge Parkway


A view of the Parkway.


I'd never seen a fence constructed like this.


At one of the many pull offs along the road, there is a bit of narrow gauge railroad laid down along with a sign talking about the railroad and timber industry in the area.


A short walk up the hill past the tracks is a waterfall.


I was amused by this sign.

The Third Day - Sherando Lake

Despite the fact that I thought the weather was going to break when the sun started shining the evening before, I awoke to a grey, dreary day. Even so, I explored the park a bit. The day use area of the park was just as nice as the campground.




Sherando Lake



The spill way over the dam.



A view of the day use area.



The bathhouse in the day use area.




Part of the Sherando Lake day use area





Tuesday, July 6, 2010

The Second Day - The Blue Ridge Parkway


The stats for the Blue Ridge Parkway.





This is at the first visitor center coming from the north. There is a farmstead set up to show you what a typical place might have looked like in the area.


This was a storm cell that was moving across the valley. I decided that if it cleared up afterwards, I'd set up camp rather than head back to town for a room.




Camp sweet camp. After the storm it cleared up nicely and I stayed at a State Park in Virginia. It is not only the nicest State Park campground I have ever stayed at, it is the nicest campground I've ever visited. Unfortunately, it started raining in the middle of the night again.




The Second Day - South end of Skyline Drive

This is Massanutten Mountain which runs down the center of the Shenandoah Valley.



Just some statistics regarding Skyline Drive.