Shenandoah.

We decided to do something pretty big for my last weekend in Virginia, so on Friday we ate a quick early dinner and hit the road for Front Royal, Virginia to visit Shenandoah National Park. It's about a two and a half hour drive from our apartment to the park, so we had plenty of time to talk on the way there. It was a good opportunity to have some tough but needed conversations about the challenges we'll be facing over the next year. Once we got closer to the hotel I thought we needed to have the right atmosphere for driving in the mountains, so I put on our best option for bluegrass music--Nickel Creek. We listened to them right up until we got to our hotel.

On Saturday morning we stopped by Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast, just to feel nostalgic about our honeymoon. After that we picked up some Subway for a picnic lunch and drove to the national park, where we got in for free thanks to AJ's active duty ID! One of the big features of the park is Skyline Drive, which is a scenic road that winds all through the mountains. It takes about three hours to drive the whole thing, and there are about 75 scenic overlooks with beautiful views of the mountains. We only drove about halfway through, but as you can see from our pictures we were not lacking for natural beauty. 


On the way through the park we stopped at a gift shop, where we picked up a postcard and AJ picked out a Sounds of Shenandoah CD. The music is really pretty and was a good alternative to Nickel Creek for our drive.

Just before lunch we finally stopped to do some hiking in search of a creek that we may or may not have found. Basically, we saw some wet rocks. It was hard work coming back up the hill, so we were really ready for lunch when we got to a picnic table.

After lunch we did a little more driving and picture taking, and AJ found us another trail that looked promising, so we tackled that as our last thing for the day. One our way down the trail a man coming up in the opposite direction warned us that there was a bear on the trail. We kept walking. Never saw the bear. The hike was longer than we thought but in the end we were rewarded with a pretty waterfall. We thought the way back uphill would be really tough, but we made it in about an hour and talked the whole way. Satisfied with our accomplishment, we drove back out of the park for a late dinner.

On Sunday we went to Luray Caverns, which is not too far from the national park. AJ had never seen a cave before, so I'm really glad we were able to do that. Touring a cave is always a cool experience, and we were surprised to find out that over 500 weddings have taken place in the cave!

We had another long drive through the Virginia countryside to get back to our apartment, but we had fun by stopping for gas at the same place we had stopped for lunch on our way here back in June. We've come a long way since then! 



Today starts the packing and dividing up our stuff so I can drive back to Illinois. Getting ready for Mom Ullrich to come visit too! So excited for that!