We slept in, not rallying until close to 9:00AM and didn’t get on the road until 11:00AM.
Our first stop was Natural Bridge. It is absolutely spectacular.
The arch was formed by a Cedar Creek, a small tributary of the James River. The limestone arch is 215 ft high with a span of 90 ft. It consists of horizontal limestone strata, and is the remains of the roof of a cave or tunnel through which the creek once flowed. It is crossed by US Route 11, the road we took in.
Moments after Debbie took a picture of me,
we passed a sign warning of “falling rocks” when a walnut-size stone fell from the cliff above and just missed her by less than a yard.
You can wander along a stone path for nearly a mile beyond the Bridge, passing a recreation of a Monacan Indian village,
outflow of an underground river
and a 50′ waterfall.
Along side the path, schools of small fish, pools with hundreds of polliwogs,
and brown water snakes can be seen swimming or sunning on rocks.
Our entrance fee also entitled us to go through the Wax Museum. Unfortunately, while the some of the exhibits were worthwhile, some of the wax figures were pretty awful.
It was a relatively short drive to Luray where we are staying in the shadows of the Shenandoah Mountains, which I have hiked as the Appalachian Trail snakes along its spine for over one hundred miles
with views of a number of pastoral farms .
It’s hard to believe that we’ve been on the road for more than ten weeks and are due home in three days. We’re not sure we’re ready to reenter the “real world”!