A Week (Almost) at Shenandoah Natl Park

We took a chance, spent 6 nights at Big Meadows Campground, and had a great time.  A lot has changed since our last visit in October.  The campground's woodyard, showers, and laundry are under renovation.  A FEMA trailer is set up to provide showers, the woodyard moved to the gas station, and the closest laundry is at Lewis Campground consisting of one washer & one dryer.

 Despite our dislike of the FEMA trailer showers, they are effective though hot water can be hard to come by (and the showers stay dirty despite the maintenance staff's best attempts to keep them clean). The new showers, restrooms and laundry are going to be spectacular if the recent renovations to the wayside & lodge restrooms are any indication of what's to come.  Hopefully, it's all done by October.

We spent a lot of time in & around Skyland taking hikes along Limberlost, Stony Man, and Passamaquoddy Trails.  The picture at right is of what use to be the hemlock area of the Limberlost Trail.  The dead hemlocks were cut down around 2004 for safety reasons, so this picture is a good example of what the new growth looks like.

At top is Donna by an apple tree along Big Meadow's Nature Trail.  The next picture down is an early evening, northwest view from Big Meadows Lodge.

The picture at right is from Little Stony Man Summit along Passamaquoddy Trail (looking north along Skyline Drive).  This is the first time we've hiked the Passamaquoddy Trail, and it's a great 2-hour walk in the woods.

Today we moved to the Jellystone RV Resort at Williamsport, MD for a week.  The goal this coming week is to bike some of the C&O Canal before moving on to Indiana.

For the inquisitive, we left Big Meadows with little less than a day's worth of freshwater - maybe 20 to 25 gallons or so.  (I'm guessing we arrived with 90 to 95 gallons of freshwater.)  We took advantage of an old boondocker's trick and dumped our dishwater down the blackwater tank to save gray water tank capacity.  It looks like 6 days is just about our max.  It was warm most of the time, so we used less than one 40-lb tank of propane for heating, hot water, cooking, frig & generator on this trip.  We used the generator about an hour a day.

That's it from here.  Everyone enjoy their Memorial Day weekend!  David