Virginia

So, as I said, I'd finally get around to talking about what happened in Virginia, where I was typing the last post. Well, that was quite a while ago but we've been on the move for a few days and now I finally have a chance to sit down and talk about it. Tomorrow or the next day I hope to catch up on what we've done recently, aka in the last couple of days.

So, on our way down to Virginia we drove on Skyline Drive of the Shenandoah National Park. It was a beautiful drive, no joke, even for a kid from the west with its scenic and majestic views. No, the mountains weren't as high or as rugged but they were completely covered in greenery and afforded overlooks of the valley which were ridiculously beautiful.

We came out of there near Grottoes, which is were my Aunt Julie and Uncle Bobby live, near Harrisonburg, VA. They had a delicious meal awaiting us, Uncle Bobby recently retired and is one of the best grill masters I know. We really didn't do much but we stayed up and talked, read, and went to bed, Aunt Julie had to work the next day.

In the morning we got up and I made the most delicious cup of coffee. Ok, so they have this coffee maker that makes one cup at a time but it makes it super quick and super delicious. It also makes tea and hot chocolate, no joke, this thing was for real, it was legit. I am now in the market.

We watched golf all morning. It was Friday and they had postponed the U.S. Open because of bad weather on Thursday, if you remember, so it was on all day. Sadly we didn't get to watch it all day as my cousin Jon came over and with his buddy Kevin, all four of us went to Grand Cavern, a cave nearby. It was pretty cool, some of the largest collection of stalagmites, stalagtights, and shield formations in the world, if you know what those are. It was kinda sad that many of the formations had been damaged in the past by trophy hunters but you could still see most of the stuff.

The best, and worst, part of the trip was our tour guide. She was ridiculous. I'm sure that this was her first summer and she'd only given a few tours and she followed everything from the book to a T, but she did nothing more. It was like she was a robot spewing forth the information that had been grilled into her head, no personal imagination. On top of that she had the most annoying high pitched voice in the world, and it wasn't even her real voice, it was her tour guide voice. We got a short video of it that I hope we'll be able to share.

After that the four of us took a short hike, up and around behind the cave to another small cave that Jon and Kevin knew about. There wasn't a trail and we cut cross country, and Luke, Jon, and I were in sandals, but I only slipped once so no harm done. After that we had a rock climbing experience, up to a rock formation called Horse-head. I afforded us a pretty good view of the mountains to the east and was just a really cool place to chill for a bit. That we did mainly because the climb down was pretty intense. Still, it was great exercise, and we got our fill of critters, horseflies, ticks, and one rattlesnake. Kevin had 5 ticks on him at one checking.

That night was once again pretty relaxed where we chilled and had grilled chicken and peanut butter pie. We had a long drive in the morning and we wanted to go to bed decently early.

One thing about Virginia, I'm proud to say that this was the first time on our trip that we had back to back days of beautiful weather, no rain. Of course, once the rain stops, the 99% humidity begins and as dry heat, if we even have heat, Oregonians, that wasn't the most pleasant experience. But you know, I'm sure that we'll suffer though a bit of humidity when we can have the benefits of no rain.

Well, that's all I'm gonna say, tomorrow I'll try and help out those folks who are wanting us to catch up. Don't worry, Luke will soon be back to re-invigorate your blog interest.

Chris