Last day in the Shenandoah National Park

Last night we went for supper at the hotel restaurant, and Liz was very much looking forward to having the Maryland crab cakes I had chosen the night before.  Sadly for her, they were off, as was every other starter apart from frogs legs covered with honey, and corn fritters! ? We decided to skip starters.

we just got back to our room when the heavens opened and we had the most alarming thunderstorm I can remember.  It was coming down in stair rods and the rain was cascading out of the downpipes, with incredible claps of thunder for a long time.

the morning dawned brighter though so we set off early to explore the northern section of Skyline Drive.  Today was not a bear day, it was a deer day, and we saw a group of 6 whitetailed deer gently grazing in the morning sunshine.  We moved on for a spot of breakfast, finding a wayside diner where two poor (separate) souls were packing up their sodden tents ready to move on this morning.  We were all waiting for the diner to open at 9.  The two chaps got talking, and when the doors of the diner opened, we followed them in.  One of the fellas was saying, after his soggy night under canvas, “I need something large”, at which point my travelling companion threw wide her arms and shouted, “here I am!”  Hilarity ensued, with the poor waitress not really understanding what was happening.  We got chatting to them both, one a retired CHiPs man who started walking on March 6th (Jeffrey A Bell – check him out on Facebook) and a Colonel in the navy who works in Washington and is on vacation prior to retirement (we called him Col. Harman, after the actor in Liz’s fave tv programme, NCIS). She keeps asking everyone we meet where the NCIS building is in Washington, and nobody knows!

we had a late lunch, deciding on a small bowl of chilli, but Liz decided she wanted the blackberry ice cream pie for afters … It was enormous and even with two of us picking at it, we had to leave a load!   We have retired to the room to do crosswords, drink vodka, and prepare for the next leg of our journey tomorrow, to Fredericksburg.