Loft Mountain, Skyline Drive

Park all to ourselves.  Everyone and the school kids all gone !

Loft Mountain Campground

Skyline Drive, Virginia

9/27/10

We have moved South down the Skyline Drive a distant 30 whole miles and set up.  Mist and fog and rain blanketed the entire drive and we drove at 30 miles an hour with visibility no more than 20 yards.   In camp we set up, did laundry and settled in cozy, clean and warm to wait out the weather.  So far it is wait in the rain and use this time to plan for the rest of Virginia .  The more I see and learn about Virginia the more I like.  In the next couple of days I look forward to seeing Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and his experiment in some of the earliest architecture in the New World.  Also just below Monticello is Appomattox, central to Civil War history as the place where Lee surrendered to Grant.  The entire state is so steeped in American history.  Consider Lee’s  soldiers moving down the Shenandoah Valley in a column 4 miles long!  History does seem to come alive as the battlefields so bathed in blood of American brothers and fathers and sons imbues the earth with a spine tingling  presence of tragedy. It cannot be comprehended  how much richer America would be today if the hundreds of thousands of our men and all that they could have contributed had not been lost to the musket ball, to the shells and flames and bayonets, gas and horrors of war.   I wish I knew more about this strife that so changed our world.  Rest assured I am reading and looking as much as I can to begin to learn.  Seeing these sites and hearing these names gives me  the same feeling I would get in the Western states where  I continued to criss cross the Lewis ad Clark and Sacajawea trails.  We stand on those who have gone before.  It’ an unbroken continuum.

Again a thunder storm is forecast for tonight.  A thunderstorm in the Appalachians !

A good time for a rum and poetry, some Merwin perhaps, contrapuntal rhythms  with the rain music.

Playing in the sun

9/28/10

Woke up to a misty morning with the moon past full still low and gleaming off the top of the Airstream’s wet  aluminum skin.

The sun tried and tried to break thru.  It was worth taking a chance to dress dry and go for a walk.  Schools back in session so the playing, shouting high pitched voices are gone.  It’s Moday so the week enders are gone.  In fact the park is practically empty.  And it’s a large park.  The black asphalt drives are strewn with yellow leaves.  We took off into the woods on the West side toward the blankets and walls  of  mist which hinted at a valley beyond and maybe even the Shenandoah Valley.  We stumbled onto the famous Appalachian Trail and took it for a while.  Lichen green granite promentories hung out over the slopes and allowed for vistas to the Appalachhian Hills and Shenandoah Valley beyond.  And beyond we could see West Virginia and George Washington National Forest.  The dense hardwood hillsides were shaded with cinnamon, green, and tints of vermillion.  Not yet the full blown exclamation.  Perhaps in about three weeks.

We continued along the Appalachian trail with the occasional white blaze on trees showing the way.  The sun began to break out again and dappled the forest canopy and floors with light and shadow shifting back and forth animating the walk.

The afternoon finally cleared, blue won the skies and I was able to spend a few hours playing my guitar and warming up.

We even built a fire for the evening.  All in all, a good day.

JoAnn chilling