Appalachian Joe

Road trips are fun but it’d be nice to stay a bit longer in one place to have more chance to check it out. Big Meadows in Shenandoah was pretty amazing but we really only had a flying visit. We had a long drive ahead of us today so we could only see a few things along the drive. We had breakfast at the Lodge which was adequate- Steve had oats and I had eggs and bacon.

We stopped by the nearby Visitor Center and asked if there were any short walks along the way. We were told there was a good waterfall hike nearby. Despite us saying yesterday that we weren’t going to hike down to another waterfall in this unrelenting heat, we decided to give it a go.

The car park was quite full – a popular hike. But everyone returning from it looked hot and tired. We persevered nonetheless.

Going down to the waterfall wasn’t too bad. And there was a nice falls at the end of the walk.

Hiking back up was tiring, I’m not going to lie. BUT it wasn’t as bad as yesterday’s trek. Or maybe we are just more fit today? We were pretty drenched in sweat by the time we made it to the top.

There was this chill guy doing the walk – let’s just call him “Appalachian Joe” who was not fazed by the walk one bit. He moseyed on down to the waterfall – had a smoke and then casually walked back up without breaking a sweat. Quite impressive really.

It was a nice hike – but probably our only for the day.

We headed on to our next stop along the way – Skyland. This is where we considered staying but then chose Big Meadows instead. We wanted a coffee but our only option was Starbucks. What can you do? We got iced coffee- it wasn’t THAT bad I guess.

We stopped at a few more overlooks on our way along the Skyline drive. It’s really hard to not stop at everyone.

Nd then before we knew it we had finished the Skyline drive and were exiting Shenandoah national park. We still had a bit of a drive ahead of us to our nights accommodation- Hartzel House in the tiny town of Addison, Pennsylvania. We drove through Maryland on the way.

We saw some things on this drive.

We made it to Hartzel House and it was really lovely and the owner was really friendly and gave us good recommendations for the area. We immediately regretted spending only one night here, but our tind was limited so what can you do?

We were staying in the cottage and it had a cool loft with pull down stairs. Also a beautiful garden out back where we saw squirrels eating apples larger than their head, hummingbirds and fireflies.