Blue Ridge Parkway Trip, Day Two: Grafton, WV to Skyline Drive, VA

It turned out the gas station Harley guy was right.  The road East of Grafton was a windy, steep, two lane road.  It was very pretty, and I was very glad that we did not attempt it in the dark and the rain the night before.  It was still raining, but at least it was light rain in the daytime.  The road had some sharp banking to help us around the turns.  In some places it banked towards the mountain, other places it banked away from the mountain.  I almost got the feeling they were trying to dump us off the mountain!  A baby deer ran across the road right in front of Eric.  It was so close Eric says he watched its little hooves skitter on the wet pavement.  Later down the road another three deer ran up the hill, away from us. 

When we got to Front Royal, Virginia, we stopped for lunch.  We feasted at a Chinese Buffet, and then got onto Skyline drive.  Once on Skyline Drive we stopped at the Visitor Center.  Skyline drive runs through the middle of Shenandoah National Park, which is a very popular park for hiking, backpacking, and camping, as well as bicycling and driving.  Skyline drive is 105 miles long, with 75 overlooks and speed limit of 35 miles per hour.  We didn’t stop at ALL the overlooks, but we did at least slow down and take a peek at most of them. 

At one particular overlook we stopped to take some pictures, and I was watching a very interesting, scary looking storm cloud formation rolling across the sky, when I suddenly realized that it was coming right for us.  “Holy crap!”  I yelled.  “Run for your bike!   It’s going to get us!”  We were strapping on our helmets when a man, who had also been watching the storm cloud pulled up and told us that there was some shelter down the road.  We thanked him and took off.  It did not take long for the storm to engulf us.  It was raining so hard we could barely see.  Still, we kept moving until we came to a Wayside gift shop, gas station, lunch counter.  We went inside and waited for the rain to stop.  Eventually it did.  And after a while it rained some more.  Off and on.  All day.

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