Skyline Drive is a 105 mile National Parkway that runs the length of Shenandoah National Park. It generally runs along the ridge of the Blue Ridge mountains so it climbs and descends and twists and turns. The road is impeccably maintained and there are many lookouts along the way.
We started at the northern entrance in Front Royal, Virginia and the ranger at the entrance gate alerted us to the presence of 50 cyclists on a tour along the Drive. The top speed limit is 35 and that, combined with the many lookouts kept us on Skyline Drive for most of the day. It’s hard to capture the beauty in pictures. Here are some of our favorites. There was a nice three family cooperative photo shoot at one of the outlooks. The traffic was sparse so we did tend to see the same cars over and over.
We were very fortunate that the stormy weather in the area mostly stayed away and just provided some scenery drama.
We eventually started to encounter single cyclists and mini peletons on the road. They were all extremely fit; no surprise given the terrain. Our favorite was the guy that was coming up the highway toward us who signaled for us to stop on a pretty steep downgrade in the road so he could retrieve his sunglasses that he must have dropped. He then proceeded to ride downhill, no hands, as he cleaned and put his glasses back on. Tom clocked him speeding at around 40 mph. Oh yeah, it was raining at that point as well.
Skyline Drive runs into the Blue Ridge Parkway. Our home for the night was a cabin not far off the parkway as we planned to drive the Blue Ridge at least park of the way to our next base in Fries, VA where we will be for 3 nights. What a cabin! Pre-civil war era, relocated and renovated, it was a great place to stay although Tom may have lost a few IQ points from the low ceiling head trauma.
We sat on the back porch swing and listened to the evening sounds of birds, insects and creek all grow louder as the sun set. It was so peaceful and we managed to escape inside to make dinner before the bugs carried us away.