Many
times during the trip up the Blue Ridge Parkway, I was told to be
sure not to miss Skyline Drive that starts close to where the parkway
ends. I didn't realize how close it was, because we ended up on Skyline
Drive before we realized we were really off the parkway. Mom and I
were celebrating going the entire 469 miles of the parkway when we
found ourselves at the gate entering Shenandoah. There was noplace
to turn around in my 36' motorhome without unhooking the car right
there, so the ranger told me there are several turnoffs that I could
use to change direction. However, the first few we saw I didn't think
were large enough, so we decided to just press on and spend the night
at Loft Mountain, the first campground from this entrance about 25
miles up the road. I wasn't particularly happy about this turn of
events at first because it's pretty slow going with a speed limit
of 35 mph. Mom's plane home was leaving Richmond on the 14th and we
had planned to head straight there.
To
further complicate matters, it was starting to rain and I knew that
would slow us down even more.
Once we
got to this pulloff, though, all complaints had ceased and we just
stood there in awe expressing thanks for the clouds that were putting
on this kind of show for us.
The clouds
were so near the road we could practically touch them and we were
thrilled to be able to just watch them drift by.
Even the
ones that were farther away that touched the tops of the mountain
and clung to the valley made this stop one of the most special we'd
experienced so far.
Here's
a panoramic shot that still doesn't do justice to the expansive
beauty of this day.
When
we finally took off down the road again we were laughing at the
good luck of this "mistake" of a stop.
