Monday, July 18, 2019: Shenandoah National Park
My sadness over
leaving Peaks of Otter was softened by a delicious soft and gooey cinnamon roll
from the lodge before I got on the road. In the morning, I rode the 80 miles
north to the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which, in total is about
500 miles long. It connects directly to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park,
which is about 100 miles long. I saw several more deer, groundhogs, and
red-tailed hawks along this northern end of the Parkway.
I have been doing
a lot of thinking on this long ride. This road brings a lot of memories of
previous trips with my family. I am in a very different situation now, living
alone. What will the future old for me? What are my priorities? Where should my
focus be?
About 25 miles
into my ride up Skyline Drive, I reached the Loft Mountain Wayside, where I had
eaten dinner three weeks earlier. I had another delicious grilled cheese and
tomato sandwich and a dish of local blackberry ice cream for lunch. I continued
north. One difference between the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive is that
Skyline Drive has a lower speed limit—35 mph, as opposed to 45 mph on the
Parkway. There are also more guardrails and stone walls to keep people from
careening off the side of the mountain. I never even came close to doing that
on the Parkway, but the possibility was there. I got to my planned destination,
Big Meadows, around 2:30 and decided to continue on to the northern end of the
park and get a motel down in the valley.
But less than 10
miles later a powerful thunderstorm rolled in. First the sky got dark as clouds
rolled in, then the wind picked up, making it hard to control the motorcycle. Then
there was thunder and lightning. Then heavy rain started pelting me. Fortunately
I remembered that a second lodge, Skyland, was just ahead. I saw the turnoff
and pulled into the Skyland Lodge parking lot, slipping in among a nest of
other motorcycles seeking shelter. A lot of wet people with helmets and boots
crowded the lobby, but the desk clerks took care of all of us. The next problem
was that Skyland is actually a collection of about a dozen buildings scattered
around a mountaintop, so to get to our rooms, we would have to go out into the
storm again. So most of us rested in the comfortable lobby, which has a row of rocking
chairs facing a picture window. About an hour later the storm passed, and I rode
my motorcycle down the hill to my room.
I had some second
thoughts about spending the night, since the storm ended so quickly, but I
would have been wet and tired, and the roads would be wet and slick. This way I
was able to relax in a warm and dry room and get an early start in the morning.
I also know from past experience that the dining room here is excellent.
http://www.goshenandoah.com/lodging/skyland
I left Skyland at 9
a.m. and soon was heading down the mountain and into the Shenandoah Valley. I
found a scenic mountain road to cross Massanuten Mountain and get to Route 11. Once
on Route 11, I rode north along the valley through Virginia, West Virginia,
Maryland, and into Pennsylvania. In Maryland (my home state), I stopped and asked a county sheriff for directions to find a road that bypassed downtown Hagerstown (where my ancestors settled in the 1750s). He was very helpful.
