August 13th and 14th, Skyline Drive and Shenandoah National Park, VA

Sunday, August 13th and Monday, August 14th
Day 49 and 50
Driving to Virginia, Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park

The drive along Skyline Drive yesterday was beautiful. We had lovely weather and the temperature was in the low seventies up here on the ridge. I consider that about as perfect as it can get. We drove up Skyline Drive from the south, to about the half-way point and we are camping at Big Meadows Campground. This is a very nice campsite and we are just a few feet from the “edge” and can get a good view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Also, the Appalachian Trail is right near our campsite, not that I am planning on hiking the 105 miles of it that exist here at Shenandoah, but I did hike maybe half a mile of it. I found a very nice rock to sit on early this morning (Monday) and had a nice view for about 5 minutes until Brownie became too impatient to wait there anymore. I thought she was going over the edge a few time…

This park is FULL of deer. We saw a bunch of them last night, including an incredible 10-point buck. This morning I saw 12 does and fawns and three bucks on my morning walk with the dog. She has taken to barking at the deer, which is not good. The deer here are not afraid of people, but they still run when the dog barks at them.

Early today we took the kids to the Visitors’ Center. It is under construction, and being remodeled, so there aren’t really any displays in there, but it is going to be very nice when it is finished. The kids stamped their Passports and we bought a Junior Ranger Booklet for each of them. Yes, we had to pay here also, but only $2.50 apiece. I must say that at Mammoth Cave when we had to pay I was quite annoyed, but once the kids finished the booklets there they got a nice patch instead of a badge, and an announcement was made by the Rangers over the loud speaker. That was pretty cool, and somewhat embarrassing. Here the booklet is quite long, but the kids will get a sticker and a badge.

This morning, after going to the Visitors’ Center, we went to a Ranger Program about Birds of Prey that was very interesting. The Ranger had two raptors with him to show us. One was an injured red-tailed hawk. The other was an eastern screech owl. Both were injured in some way and were unable to be returned to the wild. We learned more about birds of prey and were able to see some of their incredible adaptations up close. Some things we learned were that they have huge eyes, up to 2/3 the size of their brain, they have sharp talons for killing and grabbing prey, they have sharp curved beaks for shredding the meat before eating it, and they can spot prey from far away due to the high number of rods in their retinas. Also, the screech owl does not actually screech. It does have its ears in a strange place, that is within its eye sockets, and they are asymmetrically placed, one being up higher than the other. This allows them to triangulate the location of their prey before they even see it. We discovered that the peregrine falcon can dive at over 100 mph and that there is a nesting pair here in the park.

After the program we took a hike to Dark Hollow Falls. This was about ¾ of a mile down to the falls and a difficult ¾ of a mile back up to the parking lot. It was beautiful in the woods on the trail as we walked next to the stream. The 70 foot high falls were soothing to the soul. The sounds were peaceful and serene. I felt good after our walk there, but tired from the difficult walk back. We picked up trash along the trail and Sheldon carried it half-way out, Brianna carried it the other half-way. Why do people leave their garbage in the park? We picked up a beer bottle and a cigarette butt. Anyway, now we are off to another Ranger Program, for the Junior Rangers amongst us.