Derek’s in West Virginia for school over the summer, so for his birthday we (Derek, Amanda, and I) decided to go for it and take a day trip to Monticello and Shenandoah. I was just in both of these places last fall with Catherine, but nevertheless I was excited to go back.

We hit the road at 6:30am and made the 4.5 hour drive to Monticello. I got tickets for the Highlights Tour because they raised the price of the dome tour Catherine and I got cheated out of last year and I didn’t feel like paying $90 for a tour. I didn’t take pictures on the tour since I’d just been there, but it was nice to be able to look around and take everything in. There was a family on the tour that were absolutley homeschoolers. Wonder if they live in Front Royal, home of Seton?

After the tour, we wandered the gardens and slave row. We avoided meeting Thomas Jefferson, then hit the gift shop and headed off to our next stop.

Rain was rolling in as we pulled into Shenandoah National Park. We entered at the Rockfish Gap Station, which is the southernmost entrance of the park. The ranger asked for our parks pass and Amanda said, we don’t have one. The ranger took our money then said in a slightly condescending manner, “Do you have any questions?” Did she think we were noobs because we didn’t have a pass? There’s no way of knowing.

We stopped at the first overlook and were able to see the rain coming, which was really cool.

After driving a bit, we ascended into the clouds so stopping at overlooks was useless. We made it to our hike, Blackrock Summit. In this southern area of the park it doesn’t seem like there are many short hikes, so I chose this one which clocks in at 1.1mi roundtrip. I had quickly looked thru the pictures on AllTrails, read a few reviews, and said, this one looks good enough.

Good enough! This trail was awesome. The pictures don’t do it justice. First of all, it’s part of the Appalachain Trail. (Will I inadvertently hike the entire AT in tiny sections over the course of my life?) Second, the endgoal ended up being a boulder field, which I had completely missed on AllTrails. I’d never experienced darkness like this before a boulder field, and it was stunning. Third, this trail was as easy or hard as you wanted it to be. Derek had a fancy to scramble up the rocks and he got a killer near 360 degree view from the top. Amanda and I scrambled a bit, but the rocks were loose and a little wet, and we were content to wait closer to the bottom. Thankfully these rocks were nothing like Old Rag, so I wasn’t having any disturbing flashbacks.

We stuck around at the boulder field for a while, then headed back to the car. We didn’t see any other people on the hike, but we heard some through the trees on the way back. This portion of the park seemed pretty much deserted, whether because of the rain or the location I’ve no idea.

On our way back to the interstate, we stopped at several overlooks. The weather had cleared up while we were hiking so the views were beautiful. I like how some of the overlooks are just the mountains and wilderness, while some of them give you a view of the quaint farms and small towns in the Shenandoah Valley.

We stopped for pics at the sign on the way out, and were going to hit up Humpback Rocks on the Blue Ridge Pkwy, but the visitor’s center was closed and it was getting late so we headed back to West Virginia.

On my previous visits to Shenandoah (driving thru it a little bit with my parents a long time ago, and with Catherine last year) I liked the park. However, this southern section made me love the park. Derek was already making plans for a return visit before we’d even gotten back on the interstate. I think I would stay in the lodge on Skyline Drive for closer proximity to everything on my next trip. I also want to check out more hikes right off of Skyline Drive including waterfalls and Hoover’s Rapidan Camp. There is truly so much to do in this park, and we’ve barely scratched the surface. The southern portion was almost a deserted version of Great Smoky Mountains – with more overlooks. Shenandoah: it’s close to a lot of the population, but it seems like such an underrated park. We’ll be back, along with going to James Madison and James Monroe’s preserved homes and the ruins of a house that Jefferson designed near Charlottesville. This area of Virginia is very accessible and has so much to see and do!