Shenandoah National Park,A short Day on the Skyline Drive

Before we left Winchester we wanted to explore a little bit of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah National Park. The parkway road travels through much of Virginia and North Carolina along the  top of the Blue Ridge Mountains and is about 450 miles long. We hope to travel along it some future fall.
Friends had told us not to take our fifth wheel along the road but of course we wanted to see for ourselves if it would be possible to go this way,(We have traveled the Natchez Trace and strongly recommend it!).
It didn't look to good as we neared the parks North Entrance Station. A sign warned that the side of the arched overhang was only 12.2 feet but the arch looked higher and we are only 13 feet tall.  We showed our pass and started to climb, driving through a thick hardwood forest.

I had to pull off before we reached the first overlook as I had a line of cars behind me. I thought of the traffic jams in Yellowstone and why we avoid that place in mid summer. We reached the Shenoandoah Valley Overlook and saw Massanutten Mountain and Signal Knob in the distance. The South Fork of the Shenandoah River was far below and the sky was filled with a haze that prevented us from seeing  the sights clearly but it was still a beautiful panorama of hardwood forests.

We drove further and passed and stopped at other overlooks,  Marys Rock Tunnel approached and we drove through it and it looked like we would fit if there weren't any traffic going the other way....
Stopping we took some images of the tunnel from the Tunnel Overlook. A group of young men asked us to take their image and I had trouble with their camera but at last I got it.. They thanked us for rour kindness and I thought how nice young people can be.

Reaching the Pinnacles Overlook  we glassed Rag Top, a rocky peak far in the distance. I walked into the woods  and looked for morels but it was too early at this elevation and it was definitely to early for any berries. I didn't see any copperheads among the rocks, which would have been really cool as I have never seen one in the wild.

Returning we took Highway 211 and left the parkway passing under another low entrance station. Several cars were parked along the roadway as we headed down the mountain and I knew they were looking for mushrooms as the growth here looked further along.
It didn't take long for us to reach Winchester and our house, which is what we call our fifth wheel. We had checked some things off our list and had added to our knowledge of the east, it is time to head into Pennsylvania for a few days at Gettysburg and then to my nieces wedding in Connecticut. A long awaited family reunion. Clear skies

Heading North into a Giant Traffic Jam

We left Charleston and headed North through Columbia and then Charlotte, North Carolina. The traffic was ok and we turned off I 26 onto ! 77.  It picked up a bit as we crossed into North Carolina but we hit Charlotte at the right time and it wasn't heavy. About the only thing I remember was crossing the Pee Pee River.
Entering Virginia we stated to climb the Blue Ridge Mountains and the truck traffic became heavy as the rigth lane was full of slow moving trucks and the second lane had trucks that were trying to pass. Our Chevy climbed the hill with ease and we passed vehicle after vehicle climbing to the gap,(Out west we call these passes but here they are called gaps, hence the term water gap?).
It was a beautiful drive and then we saw the sign, I 81 was closed ahead due to a sinkhole collapse. We were ready to stop anyway as we had driven over 340 miles,a a long day for us, and so we took exit 101 on I 81 for Claytor State Park.
The park was virtually empty and we had our choice of campsites. Campground D had a bunch of pull throughs and even though the online site said that the maximum was 35 feet we didn;t have to unhook our truck as we stayed attached and just slid.
Going to the kiosk I discovered that while camping cost just 26.25 we had to pay 5.25 in a pet fee for our dog! 5.25 for a shi-tsu! I talked with another camper and he said that you only had to pay 15 dollars for a week, how kind of Virginia, I thought as I decided to spend as little as possible in a state that charges for dogs.
It was pretty there and we did have a nice walk to the lake. We saw cardinals and titmouse and lots of eastern towhees and it was cold so cold! The temperature dropped to forty degrees that night and it frosted in the area but not where we were at. We left the next morning having no idea of the mess we were heading into.
The news had reported on the sink hole and the first sign we saw said a detour had been made so we thought no big deal right. The sign read that the detour was from exit 195 and then back on I 81 on mile marker 200. It didn't sound bad until I had to stand on my brakes as the truck in front of me suddenly stopped at mile marker 187, oh no a seven mile traffic jam!
A Virgina DOT pickup backed past us with its sign telling people to slow down, and I realized that the Virginia people didn't have a clue. It took us an hour to go two miles. As the next hour passed we reached an exit for I-64,(mile marker 191 and still four miles from the detour), and using the GPS and truckers atlas Renita found a route so we headed west and then north on  US 11(At that point we wer still four miles from the detour exit).
It turned out to be a great decision as we only had to stop for a few minutes as we crossed under I 81 and we found the spot where the traffic was exiting the jam and merging onto 11. We made it past the jam! We did have to stop a few places but after 20 miles of detour we reentered 1-81 and sped back up!

We had planned on driving to a rv park at the north end of the Blue Ridge Parkway but Renita consulted the Woodalls and found out it was rated a two, which is real bad! It was priced at 38-68 bucks a night and as I was tired I had almost resigned myself to finding a walmart when She found another park at Winchester, Virignia.

It was far enough north for us to visit Antietam and Harpers Ferry but still close enough for us to Check out Shenandoah National Park, so we grimaced a bit and paid for four mights at forty six dollars a night! At least it was a nice quiet place outside the city limits. Time to rest a bit and become tourists as we sight see some history. Clear skies.