Skyline Drive

On our way home from our friend's wedding, we decided to take a detour through the mountains of Virgina. They are located in the Shenandoah National Park. It's called the Skyline Drive. It's a unique way of experiencing one of our countries National Parks (visiting National Parks is a favorite pastime of ours).

You are required to drive 35 miles/hour (which tacked on an extra 2 hours to our, already, 10 hour drive) so as not to "disturb" (a.k.a. run over or hit) any of the wildlife that freely roams the park. According to the park's brochure, there are between 300-500 black bears that roam the woods. Mike was anxiously awaiting to catch a glimpse of one. He religiously called out the window, "Here, teddy, teddy..." I wonder if he was hoping the same technique that worked for Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street, when they were fishing, would work for him? Unfortunately no, alas, he was sadly disappointed. The only black bears we saw were on the gift shop shelf.

We did see some wildlife, though! One squirrel and a deer! Not too thrilling, I might add...

But the views were thrilling enough. Breathtaking, in fact. The pictures don't do God's creation justice. The pictures below were only a FEW of the 100 overlooks available to experience (we only saw about 25 before getting back on the highway).






As our experience soon came to a close, clouds rolled in, the temperature dropped, the sky grew dark and fog crawled by, hinting to us that rain was soon on it's way. On our last overlook, the rain came down in buckets. The fog was so thick, you only saw what was directly in front of you.

As we descended the mountain range and found ourselves riding smoothly along the highway at a pace of 75 miles/hour again, the warm sun broke free. Our car was the only one on the highway that was wet. It was the longest 2 hour car wash I've ever experienced...but totally worth it.