Shenandoah NP and a Bear!

It has been so hot here - yesterday 96 and should be the same today. We are closely watching Earl to see how bad we will get impacted. Sunday we drove to Winchester and to the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley. Was so disappointed and wasn't sure why until driving back Dave said - that a display of oppulance. Sure, the Wood and Glass family that settled in Winchester about 1730 were successful, but sheese. The Glen Burnie house is the home that the last ancestor - Glass - refurbished from some of his money. The house was built in 1738 and it is quite impressive. The gardens were beautiful. The last of the Glass family got his friend to build miniture doll houses - and that's in the museum. Even had a visiting Elvis display from the Smithonian there. Unbelievable.


Yesterday we drove down the road to Strasburg, a town that was founded in early 1700's also, and they have a museum that houses artifacts back to 1710. Now that museum was very impressive. From there we drove to the Shenandoah National Park with the intent of driving from the north entrance to the mid entrance and hopefully getting home by 3pm. The Skyline drive is 105 miles long, we drove 56 of it. Took us over 5 hours just to drive this, then another hour to get home. I got my fix of the park - it is lovely, you ride the Blue Ridge Parkway along the tops of the mountains, have overlooks about every 2 miles, very scenic. And we came across a bear in the road. When we got to one of the visitor's center I asked if that bear was a baby. They said no, more than likely it was over 1 year old at which time the mother tells it to hit the road, you are on your own. We found out that there are over 500 bears in the park, but I don't think I want to get any closer than this!

Today we sit tight, just too darn hot, will play catch up, etc.