I’m seeing progress. The first day of camping it took me an hour to set up and 45 minutes to break down. Of course, I had to figure out how the tent got assembled and remember where I had put everything. I spent some time reorganizing and by the second day it was down to 40 and 30 minutes, respectively.
The tent has worked out splendidly – it attaches to the car and has created a bug-free environment – as long as I remember to zip up the flaps promptly. This is not a trivial matter – if there’s no breeze and you stand still for a minute or two you acquire a cloud of little insects flying around you. The tent has got big screened windows and is almost like being outside.
The camp setup has also worked well. I borrowed Chris’ Biolite cooking stove – a miracle of modern technology. You’ve got to see it in action to believe it (there’s a picture below). You first set a few twigs on fire in the barrel. Before long a bellows begins blowing forcefully and you add a few slightly larger ones. After a little while you drop in several pinky-diameter twigs and pop your coffee pot on top. Wait a few minutes and you’ve got hot water.
Oh, and you can plug your phone into the USB port to charge. The secret to it all is an internal apparatus which converts heat into electricity. When you’re done you dump out the little pile of ashes, pack it up and go on your way. Wild, eh?
There are squirrels out on the road sometimes; I would imagine that only the smart ones survive the tourist season.
There are distinct differences between the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway, though both are wonderful and neither has much Internet or phone access. The Skyline Drive is part of the Shenandoah National Park. It is 105 miles of beautiful scenery with many places to pull over and look at spectacular vistas. The speed limit is 35 miles an hour, which is well suited to the twisty, winding nature of the road. The lane-departure alarm on my Subaru got a thorough workout. There is a charge of $15 or $20 for a week of access, but being an old fart I have a senior national park pass so it’s free for me
The Blue Ridge Parkway stretches more than 450 miles from Virginia to North Carolina. The speed limit here is 45 miles an hour, though many stretches are fairly straight and invite a higher speed. It’s also wider, though still only 2 lanes, and seems much less precipitous, at least the sections I’ve been on.
The Skyline Drive feels quite isolated from civilization, but interestingly to me as a gardener, the Blue Ridge Parkway right of way only extends for 500 to 1000 feet on either side of the roadway. Though the planners paid attention to the fore-, mid- and background plantings, it is much more a part of its surroundings. I did pass through vast glens of huge rhododendrons on the Blue Ridge, but they were not in bloom yet. Neither road had much traffic during my pre-Memorial Day travels and campsites were mostly empty.
One other horticultural observation: Skyline is at a much higher elevation and further north, so there was only a little bit of leafing out vs. further south. A funny story came to mind as I drove: Trish had done some work with a group that focuses on South Sudanese refugees. Apparently some of them had arrived in the US in the early winter and were deeply distressed to see that all the trees seemed to have died. Thinking of their fruit trees at home, they worried, “How sad! What will people eat?”
Speaking of eating, The Skyline Drive has two visitor centers, each with full restaurants and lodges. At Jon’s suggestion I stopped at Skyland for lunch and had the best soup (Charleston she-crab chowder) I’ve had in years. I’d go back just for that.
I made it to Floyd, Virginia, where I’m staying in the really cute Pine Lodge Inn, unit 3B. If I were a more committed outdoorsman, I’d have stuck to my original plan of setting up camp at Rocky Knob. In the rain. Well, there you have it – an environmental wuss. You go get wet and let me know how that turns out for you.
