We are now home. Some final tallies:
65 days
10 states
4, 280 miles
218 miles hiked/walked
144 miles biked
0 pounds lost
We came home two weeks earlier than we has planned to help Rochelle get ready for her next adventure. She leaves mid-April for South Korea where she has accepted a job teaching English for the next year. Trevor is currently in Jordan traveling with a photojournalist to some refugee camps. Still hoping to see him at home some time this spring but his plans keep changing!
We are not sure when our next RV trip will be, we may have to be planning some overseas trips instead! We'll keep you posted.

After leaving the Blue Ridge Parkway we proceeded on to another beautiful campground, also in Virginia,

that I had looked up on-line and it said some of it was open. We knew we would arrive after the ranger station closed but we are experienced at late registration. When we got there we found 3 campgrounds. s

Since we again had no cell service and I couldn't check which one, we drove to each to see which was one was open. Two had gates across the entrance so we stayed in the third. Even though it is very early in the season we were surprised that we were the only ones there. We set up and spent the night. The bathroom lights weren't on and the hot water didn't work but the water and the electricity at the site did. It was another beautiful Virginia campground. The next morning when we registered, we were told there was a fourth campground down the road that was open and that the one we stayed in was actually closed but that someone forgot to close the gate! The ranger also gave us a discount for no hot water. She explained that the reason VA campgrounds are more expensive is that due to a law suit by private campground owners, they are now required to charge more than any nearby private facility!

This was the very dangerous entrance to the campground. No side rails! I'd hate to cross this pulling a trailer! That creek was really moving!

The park also had a triple dam, trails and creeks throughout. Another lovely Virginia park we will have to come back to.







Then it was on to West Virginia, another beautiful state that will need more exploring. We passed many vistas before arriving at our final destination, one of the few state parks open this early!  We were smart though and made a reservation this time.

Sandstone Falls

We arrived in time to do some hiking and enjoy the lovely weather. Apparently, even though it was unseasonably warm, it was still too early in the season for most campers. At this park we were one of 2 campers! We were able to hike up to an observation tower at 3000' feet and see a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains and valleys.

 

This was our last night of camping on the way home as tomorrow will be spent with Denny's brother and sister-in-law in Ohio. Every journey must come to and end.

Virginia’s state parks have signs at the entrance that read “Virginia’s state parks have been voted the nation’s most beautiful”.   And, they are some of the nicest state parks we have been in but also the most expensive (by almost double!) and very remote with absolutely no cell phone, Wi-Fi, or TV reception! We felt very isolated. Even so, I wish we would have budgeted more time for Virginia because they also have miles of beautiful hiking trails that we weren’t able to take advantage of. We’ll definitely be back.

We have been to the Blue Ridge Parkway on two occasions and not been able to travel it due to fog. We thought we were going to have to leave without seeing it again but the fog cleared around 1 PM on Tuesday and even with our late start, we were able to travel 66 miles on Skyline Drive, which is the part of the Parkway through the Shenandoah National Park. With all of the vista pull-outs and the 35 mph speed limit, it took us a little over 3 hours to go that distance. Pictures don't do it justice so I won't post any. You'll just have to go see for yourself!

While we were waiting for the fog to clear, we visited the Shenandoah Caverns which were very nice and according to the tour guide has some of the best “bacon “ formations.

Cave bacon

Since we finally have decent internet, I 'm  going to have to go backward a few days to bring you up to date. On Saturday, Denny and I climbed a mountain! Maybe not a huge mountain but the trail was marked strenuous and we did hike almost 10 miles.
We were pretty tired when we finished so we broke the law and had a beer inside our RV. It is illegal to even have alcohol in NC parks!

Atop Stone Mountain

The trail up

See the people sitting at the top? This was taken on the way back down

On the way back down

 Note the change of clothes. As the day heated up, and I heated up, I was able to make an on-the-go change of shirts, with no wardrobe malfunction!

Lots, and lots, and lots of steps. But, it would have been impossible without them.

We think this was a tour in an old police car.

On Sunday morning, we had intended to drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway to Shenandoah National Park at the top end, but it was foggy and rainy. So, we went to visit Andy and Opie in nearby Mayberry (Mt Airy, NC).

Apparently Andy was taller than Denny :)

We reversed plans and decided to drive to the top of the Parkway via the adjacent freeway and come back down it when the weather clears. On the way, we stopped at Natural Bridge in Virginia.

The literature says that this is higher than Niagara Falls. Denny and I find that hard to believe.

There was a waterfall at the end of a mile long tail along the river. Apparently, this small river is what formed the Natural Bridge

Wow, 2 forefathers made this landmark possible!

We spent the night in a campsite near a freeway which kept me awake most of the night. We will move to somewhere quieter tonight and hope that we can enter a fog-less Blue Ridge Parkway tomorrow.

3/12/16 
2 nights ago we wanted a quick stop for the night before continuing to our destination. We stopped at a Comfort Inn that advertised that it has a small RV park in back. We thought, "what a good idea, more hotels should do this". Well, it was a dump. Broken concrete pads, mud ruts and electric hook-ups that didn't work. Luckily we found a small SC state park nearby that was the same price, on a river, and delightful. Whew! I didn't find SC all that exciting. The parts we were in were poor and dirty. I'm sure there are nicer parts but we didn't see them. I believe it reaffirmed Denny's opinion of SC formed when he was stationed here in the Navy.
We continued on into NC and are currently at Stone Mountain State Park. It's refreshing to be somewhere that isn't flat! After we arrived yesterday, we hiked to a waterfall and then took a long staircase to the bottom. That wasn't too difficult but the hike back up was another thing! It was very warm and humid. I may have to change my mantra of "horses sweat, men perspire and women glow". I believe my glow was running down my back!

Today we leave Florida, for a long slow trek northward where it appears spring has arrived early. Rochelle's plans have changed so we are cutting our trip short by a couple of weeks. But, that's okay. Believe it or not, I'm getting tired of palms and pines and longing for some deciduous trees....even if they don't have leaves yet! It's also unseasonably warm here and getting too hot to hike in the woods. It's supposed to be 86 today! Yesterday's hike and bike produced a few pictures. We are in yet another state park near Gainesville that was built by the CCC.

Biggest pine cone I've ever seen. It is from a long leaf pine!

This park has a river that goes underground and rises in another state park 3 miles away. It's due to limestone formations on the property. We crossed it,  on a suspension bridge built by the CCC.

Three of the many small ponds covered with a small leafed floating plant, duck weed. It's not algae and I thought it was pretty and wanted some for our pond until someone told us that it is caused by too much nitrogen run-off.

The turtles sure seemed to like it, though!








So, looking back, although there are supposedly bears, panthers, jaguarundi, etc. in Florida but besides alligators and a million small gray squirrels all we saw was one small wild boar :(   But, we did see a lot of manatees :) The roseate spoonbill remained elusive. We saw many less wading birds due to the high water levels from all of the rain.

Stay tuned for the Carolinas and Virginias before we make the final turn for home.

This is a five day park. We have hiked all the trails, biked all the biking trails (many several times), found all the geocaches that we could and seen all there is to see. So, it's time to move on. We are ever so slowly starting out trek northward.

Geo-cache location, old John Deere in the woods

Great biking road right outside the park, pretty, fairly smooth and very little traffic!

Denny by a giant Live Oak, site of another geocache.

Our new park is Hillsborough river State Park. Denny and I stayed here 40 years ago when we went to Disney for the first time. Although we haven't changed, the park has :) It was built by the CCC and still has the original shelters, suspension bridges and concrete picnic tables that they built. But, it also has a much improved trail system and a swimming pool!

Enlarge and read the roof sign. Yikes!

This guy was climbing a tree along the trail.

I don't know about you, but Florida is all starting to look the same to me. Can you get tired of palm trees, Cyprus trees, beautiful flowers, warm temperatures and water everywhere?

The last 4 days were spent on Marco Island with good friends Bill and Julie. The weather was perfect, Julie cooked some great vegetarian food for us (Bill and Denny added meat to the finished product), and the company was superb. And, did I mention the great view from the lanai? They have a beautiful, relaxing view of the gulf.

Bill and Julie

View from the lanai

The boys accidentally strike the same superhero pose!

We ate, we drank, we laughed, we sang, we danced. Well, maybe not the last two but we did have a wonderful time. We visited a Lego exhibition and an orchid show at the local botanical garden.

Julie, Janet and Bill

 The pictures don't do these justice, they are bigger than life size and most are the size of a person!

A scary spiny tree

 The next day, we went to a wildlife sanctuary in search of the elusive Wood Stork, who remained elusive. But we did see baby alligators!

Mommy alligator. Enlarge to see the 2 babies on her back.

Close-up of a baby alligator about 6 inches long.