Shenandoah National Park

One of the lovely overlooks

When we decided to hit the road one of our goals was to go to as many of the U.S. National Parks as we could. So far we have made it to...1. haha That is right this past Saturday we finally made it to a National Park! To be fair we haven't even been on the road for two months yet.


The drive to Shenandoah National Park was beautiful. We took route 211 and entered through the Thornton's Gap entrance. It was only $20 per car and you can come back for up to 7 days. Shenandoah has 4 different locations you can enter through.  Once you are in the park you drive along the beautiful Skyline Drive and can stop at the different overlooks (there are 75 total). There are also different parking areas for the different trails. The full length of Skyline Drive is 105 miles and about a 3 hour drive. Some people just come to do the drive and stop at the overlooks.

On the way to the park

Another picture from our drive there it was a gorgeous day

Mary's Rock Tunnel

We didn't do the full 3 hour drive. We maybe drove a couple hours and stopped at about 10 overlooks. We went to the Harry F. Byrd Visitor Center to get our National Park passport stamped. The Visitor Center was right next to the  trail we had planned on going to which was the Dark Hollow Falls Trail. We should have known this one would be one of the most popular trails since it had a water fall at the end. We had a hard time finding a parking spot and ended up in the grass.

A lot of the overlooks did look similar but they were all still beautiful

Stony Man Mountain Overlook (supposed to be a man's profile)

Chris enjoying the view

pretty flowers at an overlook

Being goofy at the visitor center

The Dark Hollow Falls Trail was only a 1.4 mile hike but it was pretty steep. The way back was mainly all uphill.  I was pretty excited to see some cool wildlife on the trail. The only animals we actually saw were a chipmunk and a giant rattlesnake. We weren't expecting that. Luckily there was a group in front of us that heard the snake and we all waited for it to go back uphill before we walked by.

Chris on the Dark Hollow Falls Trail

The falls at the end of the trail

I was really hoping to see a black bear on our drive. If you go you do need to check the alerts on their website first. Right now they have a lot of  trail closures due to increased bear activity.

If we have time before we leave we will go back and check out another trail since our pass is good for 7 days.

Shenandoah Valley Wine Trail

When we were driving from Centreville to New Market, Virginia we were surprised to drive by so many wineries. I decided to look some of them up and found out they were all part of the Shenandoah Valley Wine Trail.

There are over 20 wineries on the trail. On Sunday we went to two wineries in Edinburg which is North of New Market.

The blue marks represent the Shenandoah Valley Wine Trail. ( the red dot is  our location in New Market).

Shenandoah Vineyards- Edinburg, VA

For a full wine tasting at Shenandoah Vineyards it was just $10 a person and we got to taste 10 different wines. Chris loved the unsweet Johannisberg Riesling and we both liked the Rebel Red.

• 2014 Founders Reserve Chardonnay
• 2014 Chardonnay
• 2014 Johannisberg Riesling
• 2014 Shenandoah Blanc
• 2014 Founder's Reserve Chambourcin
• 2014 Cabernet Savignon
• 2014 Rebel Red
• 2015 Medium Sweet Riesling
• 2014 Fiesta
• Nocture

We knew we were going to another winery so we ended up not buying any bottles here. Instead we walked around the property and took some pictures.

Shenandoah Vineyards. Wine tasting is upstairs.

View from Shenandoah Vineyards

Jane Meyers this is for you- Chris heard it through the grape vine

Wolf Gap Vineyards-Edinburg, VA

For a full tasting at Wolf Gap Vineyards it was just $7 a person and we got to taste 10 different wines. We actually enjoyed the wines here more and the tasting was cheaper than Shenandoah Vineyards.

• Chardonnay
• Viognier-Traminette
• 2010 Chambourcin Reserve
• 2011 Caberet Franc Reserve
• 2011 Cabernet Sauv Reserve
• 2010 Mariage Reserve
• Chambourcin Bleu
• Lobo Loco Rose
• Traminette
• Blueberry Wine

My favorite was the Cabernet Franc and Chris liked the Chambourcin Bleu so we decided to have a glass and enjoy the beautiful view.

This view is just awful isn't it?

Loved this little Wino Xing sign at Wolf Gap

We bought a bottle of wine and were given a free Wolf Gap wine glass as well.

Bluestone Vineyard- Bridgewater, VA

We were pretty excited to find out that our Harvest Hosts membership included a Shenandoah Valley Wine Trail winery. We felt like it was a no brainer to stay here on our drive south.

There are 4 different tasting options at Bluestone Vineyard. We both tend to like red wines the most so we both did the red wine tasting only which was $5 a person.  They also have tastings for white wines, reserve wines and sweet wines. There are 19 wines total on the tasting list. Our favorite was the 2013 Dry Dock. with 16.4 % alcohol. Yeah!

Once again there were beautiful views from the winery. They also have live music and food trucks on the weekend which is pretty cool.

Chris enjoying the view

If you like wine (and who doesn't?) I would definitely recommend visiting the Shenandoah Valley Wine Trail. We would love to come back sometime and check out some more of the wineries.

Endless Caverns Tour

Chris and I decided to do the cavern tour today at our RV Park- Endless Caverns in New Market Virginia. If you have never seen caverns before you should definitely go see some sometime. These were nice but they were no Natural Bridge Caverns in Texas. We are staying at the campground so we got a discount and it was only $15 per person to get in.

Chris all bright eyed and bushytailed at the beginning of the tour

The tour was 75 minutes and it was nice and cool inside around 50 degrees. The ground was pretty slippery since it rained recently and we were glad we both wore our tennis shoes. Our guide was knowledgeable, friendly and open to questions.

Our tour guide was also full of cheesy jokes that were quite painful. He kept describing everything like it was food. For example one area looked like a sundae to him. Then he had to point out every detail of the sundae all the way down to the caramel drizzle on top. There was also a lot of bacon and then one area was Santa's sleigh or it could also be a bar with a full description of how it could be a bar.

Chris was loving those jokes!

At one point while the tour guide was talking someone let out the loudest fart. There were only 11 people on the tour and we all kind of looked around in disbelief. I think we were also all trying to figure out who did it. I kept hoping it was just a weird shoe sound on the slippery floor. Nope. I wasn't sure of this until later though when the guy started farting loudly again and his poor young son was saying "Dad stop".

The other thing is these caves are protected by law and you are not  supposed to touch anything except the hand rails. This guy kept touching and leaning on the walls every chance he got. What is wrong with people?

The best part of the tour was the end. Not only because we were glad to escape the bad jokes and farts but they actually had a little light show with some music at the prettiest part of the caverns.

Even though this probably sounds like we are complaining we both actually found the whole thing to be kind of funny.