Road Trip to Virginia! (Day 1-2)

October 11, 2012 (Thursday)

This adventure takes us to Williamsburg, Virginia. We headed out after work, with hotel reservations at the Comfort Inn in Mars, PA. Our room was large, had decent décor, quite clean, and the sheets and towels were both really soft. The bathroom had been updated but was extremely small and the wallpaper was in poor condition. The ceilings were kind of gross also – water damaged.

October 12, 2012 (Friday)

Friendship Hill NHS

After the free complimentary hot breakfast, we headed to Friendship Hill National Historic Site in Point Marion, PA. The site is free to visit. The home belonged to an interesting man named Albert Gallatin. Gallatin is mostly remembered as Secretary of Treasury under Jefferson and Madison. He was able to reduce the national debt, purchase the Louisiana Territory, and fund the Lewis & Clark exploration. There is a short video at the visitor center and if you are lucky, like we were, you will be able to go on a guided tour of the home. The guide did a great job at giving us the history of both Gallatin and the home. The guided tour was probably about an hour in length. There really is not a lot to see at the site other than a few rooms in the home. The park has over ten miles of hiking trails, some which provide views of the Monongahela River. During our visit, we enjoyed lovely fall colors.

Friendship Hill NHS - Porch View

Cedar Creek & Bell Grove NHP

Our next stop was Cedar Creek & Belle Grove National Historical Park, in Middletown, VA. Currently, there is not much to see at this site. A visitor center is under construction and set to open in the next few years. While, we were there no ranger led events were going on. There are partner sites in the area, but they were closing around the time we were there.

Shenandoah NP

The last stop for the day was Shenandoah National Park. Shenandoah was established in 1935 to provide the “traditional western national park experience” to the urban east. The road that runs through the park is called Skyline Drive and it stretches for 105 miles. The speed limit along Skyline Drive is only 35 mph, it takes a few hours to drive the entire length. There are fees at this site, refer to the NPS website for pricing. We headed to the Dickey Ridge Visitor Center (around mile post 5) to pick up a park map and get some information about the hiking trails. We did the hike across from the visitor center; the trail was called Fox Hollow Trail. It was fairly easy and about 1.2 miles in length.

Shenandoah NP

There are many campgrounds and other lodging opportunities available at Shenandoah. Everything at the park was full during our visit. 

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Stephens City, VA for the evening. The room was under $100 and really nice and clean.  For dinner, we walked over to Roma Casual Italian & Greek Dining. The place had good food and a nice atmosphere. I had the Napoli Chicken with garlic pasta and Caesar salad. Mike had the veal Parmesan with pasta and Caesar salad. The rolls that they provided were good also.