October 2, 2019 • 36 mins
If you’re looking for the perfect place to chase waterfalls and run from black bears, then cap it all off with an apple martini at a makeshift speakeasy, Shenandoah National Park is the place for you! This place has it all: bountiful forests, foggy mountaintops, scenic drives, intimidating wildlife, and quaint towns filled with chatty cab drivers and friendly restaurant service. It’s also got a lot of history, and we’re excited to share all our findings on this wonderful Virginia park.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're looking for the perfect place to chase waterfalls
and run from black bears, then capital off with the
naple martini at a makeshift Speak easy. Shenandoah National Park
is the place just for you. That's right. This place
has it all. Bountiful forests, foggy mountaintops, scenic drives, intimidating wildlife,
and quaint Town's filled with chatty cab drivers and friendly
(00:21):
restaurant service. And it's also got a lot of history too.
We're excited to share all of our findings about this
wonderful Virginia park. Hi, I'm Matt and then Brad. This
is the park Landia Podcast from my Heart Radio. We
packed up our stuff in Chicago and moved into an
r V and now we're shopping the country full time
with our dog fin exploring America's national parks. They we're
(00:45):
talking about Shenandoah in Virginia. So, for some unfair reason,
a vast majority of national park in the US are
clustered out west, with only a few scattered along the
East coast. And as someone who grew up on the
(01:06):
East Coast, I am personally offended by this. But at
least you have gems like Shannon Doah to brag about. Yeah,
I mean, I do not even want to talk though,
because like most of the parks I visited growing up,
we're out west, or like all of them were out west,
even though I grew up like four hours from Acadius.
So I'm basically a total hypocrite complaining about this. And
(01:27):
in this case, I I've never been to Shenandoah when
I was a kid, so my gripeing is kind of unfounded.
But as an adult now, like why there there should
be more? Of the East Coast is beautiful and Shenandoah
perfectly exemplifies that. Yeah. And when you and I went
in the spring, it was the first time for both
of us, and it really just blew us away. I mean,
I was I wasn't expecting to see this like rich
(01:51):
Green Mountain, with these beautiful valleys and the in betweens
and the dotted with clouds and patches from this misty fog.
I mean, it just looked like something out of a movie. Yeah,
or this hauntingly beautiful dream, especially in the morning. Not
a sound cliche or anything, but shenan Doah is the
kind of place that really defies cliches. It's just that good. Yeah.
(02:11):
I was exciting to visit a national park together that
neither of us have experienced before or knew much about.
You know, we were going in completely fresh and open minded. Yeah,
that's true, like total blank slate. And we were at
this time fresh off a few days in Richmond, which
is one of my favorite cities ever. And we were
there because you were selling syrup in an event. Um,
(02:31):
do you want to talk a little bit about that
and then we can gush about Richmond maybe because I
can't resist. Yeah, No, I mean I really love those events. Um.
That one was the Bizarre Bizarre, And love the name yeah,
and it's spelt two different ways, just because it's that fancy.
They're so clever and so um. I really enjoyed going
to that event and selling Burns Maplewood Farm maple syrup,
(02:52):
and and it was just a really great time going
into Virginia. And I remember buying tickets for that baseball
game for the Long Day. I remember that was just
horrific because I was like, Oh, I'm so excited, we're
going Opening Day and then it's like, not, those are
for tomorrow. Yeah, and then yeah, that sucked. But we
(03:14):
wound up going to see the pet Cemetery movie at
this great movie theater nearby, and the movie theater had
a bar with hefty wine pores, so it probably worked
out for the best, to be honest. But Richmond is
so yeah, great, and it's a great place to spend
a few days visiting the wonderful restaurants there, neighborhoods, and
they have hiking trails in the city and around the
(03:34):
James River, so it's a good, little, good place to
pregame before making the drive, very doable drive to Shenandoah,
which we did. And this was all kind of in
the midst of a few months being on the East
Coast up and down for these different events that you
were working at, and we knew at some point we
wanted to make it to Shenandoah, but we needed to
(03:57):
be strategic about it because this was spring and is
notoriously fickle in terms of weather, so we needed to
wait until enough time had gone by where things were
warming up and the snowy mountains could thought out more.
And it needs to be drivable for our RV for sure, absolutely.
I mean for an East Coast park, this place has
(04:17):
a pretty impressive elevation. I mean things can get cold
and snow up there above the clouds. Yeah, this is
definitely an elevated place by East Coast standards for sure.
And I I loved it. I was really blown away.
And it's the main part of it that you're driving
through was this road called Skyline Drive. And I honestly,
(04:37):
I don't know if I told you this at the
time we're driving through, but I was definitely thinking it.
I feel like Skyline Drive should be a level on
the next Mario Mario Kart game, you know, right, definitely,
because it's like it's like Rainbow Road. It felt like
Rambow Road, but like safer but National Parks Edition National
Parks Rainbow Road, um, not in outer space. And so
(04:58):
Skyline Drive is this long hundred and five mile main
road that runs along the crest of the Blue Ridge
Mountains from the park's northern end to its southern end. Yeah,
it's definitely one of those, like the most ultimate scenic
drives in the entire National Park Service. I mean, it's
a must drive for any road trip. Yeah. But seriously,
that we drove the whole entire thing, didn't we um
(05:20):
or most of it? I think at least at least
seven percent. I think there was a section maybe towards
the far something end that was closed off for road
damn it or something, but we did drive a vast
majority of it. And skyline drive is iconic for good reason.
It takes you deep into dense forest and then up
(05:41):
along some high elevation mountain ridges with these panoramic valley
views on either side of the road along the way.
The overlooks are just killer, and there are so many
of them, and you're gonna want to stop at practically
all of them, I mean, because each viewpoint just gets
better and better and higher and better. How you get
(06:01):
the better it gets. I mean, even though for us
in our V some of these overlooks were a little tricky.
It was kind of hard to park and get in
and out sometimes and we had to back up our V.
But and that's only because the trailer was attached. But
even then it was still wasn't that hard. Yeah, some
of them are really narrow and they didn't have like
loop type overlooks, So these are the ones you had
(06:23):
to kind of pull into then pull out of, and
with an RV, that how the trailer being towed behind it.
That was really tricky, and I don't know how you
do it, Honestly, I could never just thinking I get
I was just sitting the vac sat nervously by to
my nails and holding fin which is I'm sure very
helpful for you. I appreciate your emotional support. Yeah, that's
my pattern. But anyways, the Skyline Drive is so incredible
(06:44):
that it actually became the first road to east of
the Mississippi River to be named a National Historic Landmark
on the National Register of Historic Places. And it's also
a National Scenic Byway. That's amazing. It's this road has
more accolades than Meryl Street. Oh, it's the Meryl Streep
of scenic drives. That's yeah. Yeah, and it totally it
(07:05):
really is the leading lady of this park too. Genandoah
is um to give you a sense of the geography
of this place. It's a pretty long, narrow park, mostly
anchored by Skyline Drive. It's but not only is it
known as the scenic drive destination, it's a hiking paradise too,
with hundreds of my little trails that branch off either
(07:26):
side of Skyline Drive. Yeah, you can actually hike care
for months and so miles of trails to explore, including
about a hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail, which we're
right through the entire length of the park. Yeah, and
that was really cool. So now we can officially say
that we've hiked part of the Appalation Trail together, like
little snippets of it. Let's be honest, we were probably
weren't going to be hiking the rest of the trail
(07:47):
anytime soon. Yeah. I think we actually talked about this
while we're hiking here, like on the first trail, because
we did part of the Appalachian and me, I, I
just started like thinking and ruminating, and I remember saying
to you how it'd be fun to do the entire
Appalation one day, but only on the condition that you
drive alongside me so that I don't have to carry
(08:08):
a backpacker campital and so I would do like the
glamping version of the Appalaian Trail. Like I said, we
probably won't be hiking rest this trail anytime soon, Okay, okay,
I mean one day, one day, you'll you'll understand. Until then,
I'll just wait patiently until you change your mind. And
in the meantime, there's plenty of trails to hike at
Shenandoah that don't include the appalation. On the west side
(08:32):
of the park is the Shenandoah Valley, and the east
has the Virginia Piedmont region, which has endless rolling hills
and mountains. The west felt more lush and kind of
rainforest like to me, at least once you hike down
into the woods. It's really like the best of both
worlds in one park. You have like these thick rainforesty
forests and then these like super kind of foggy, smoky
(08:53):
mountains on the other and these deep valleys. It's magnificent.
Speaking of valleys, I cannot to talk to you about
what's on the other side if some of these valleys
when we get back from this short break. Hi, I'm
(09:20):
Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Landia, and today
we're talking about Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. For us,
our entry point to Shanondo was from the front Royal
Virginia at the park's most northern entrance, and it's a
small town. We didn't really do anything here aside from
stock up on some groceries um, and then we set
up for the night at a r V park just
(09:41):
a few minutes from the entrance. Yeah, even though it's convenient,
that park was kind of shady. I feel bad for
making reservation there, but I don't really, you're much better
at like researching that stuff and making reservations. Yeah. I
remember driving into the r V park and there were
some random cows just running around and blocking our way.
I mean that was an omen I'm sure, yeah, and
probably should have been signed that we should turn around.
(10:02):
But luckily we only had one night here and then
we're able to wake up early the next day to
get started in the park. And the entrance was right there,
so that's fine. And Skyline Drive, I think, is even
prettier in the morning, Like the earlier you get up
and go, the better because it has all this missed
kind of billowing through and you're driving into it and
then all these chirping birds and some light that's starting
(10:24):
to flicker through the trees. It's all very storybook just enchanting. Yeah,
right away, it just amazes you, and it only gets
better as w you're further and further down the road.
Um and saw all those amazing views. Yeah, for sure.
Trill So after a few of these stops and overlooks,
which took a little bit of time. Our first order
(10:45):
of business was a waterfall hike that I had researched,
called the Overall Run Falls. It's about twenty one miles
down Skyline Drive, and Shenandoah is particularly known for its
abundant waterfalls, especially of the tall cascading variety like this one.
So I picked this trail, which is moderately strenuous. It
goes down at first to lead to this waterfall valley
(11:08):
off Skyline Drive, and then you obviously turn around and
hype back up. Altogether, it's about six and a half
miles round trip with uh half tea amount of elevation game.
It's about eight hundred feet worth of elevation game, so
it's nothing to scoff at. Yeah, it's like deceiving at first, though,
because when you're going down, it makes you think that
(11:29):
the whole trail is going to be easy and relaxing.
But when then you remember then the farther down you go,
you're gonna have to go right back, and uh, I
don't think I was too happy about that. Yeah, I
don't think we're We thoroughly thought that through like we
had a very leisurely comfortable chat on the way down
about me wanting to do the appellation and like guilging
(11:50):
you into driving alongside me, right right, And then we
had a nice little lunch and then on the return
long I was like, oh, right, we have to go up,
like friendly reminder. And I'm also not that great at
being a motivational coach. I remember like we were hiking
up and I kept like speed hiking up ahead of
you and then waiting for you to catch up, and
(12:12):
then doing it again and repeating this process, and I
think it was really annoying. It was like the most
annoying way I could have hiked for you, Like it
wasn't I played the fifth Yeah, But we started chatting
with this other hiker who was obsessed with dashall parks
like we were. And I think he was from Minnesota.
Um that sounds right, Yeah, And he was in the
area to check out Shannondo as well. Yeah, he was.
(12:33):
He was very nice, very and it was a nice
pleasant distraction to to have someone to someone else to
chat with on the way up, especially towards the last
leg of this return trip. And he was clearly equally
as eager for the child to be over. And I
also think that's something you guys bonded over as I
like flitted around you like an annoying like a mosquito. Yeah,
(12:55):
you were basically just like running circles around us, and
we were like huffing and puffing and and but the
trail really was worthwhile. Yeah, any trail is, and it's
all about the journey, not the destination. So true. The
waterfall was beautiful. I mean it was quite tall with
like a drop, and it provided this great view of
the like super green forest in the Shantandoah Valley with
(13:17):
all these rocks ledges that ran up above the waterfall
for great foot opportunities. And yeah, really good. I know that.
I love the rocky ledges with like the waterfall. TiO
left and it's really tall, one of the tallest in
the park. And then the landscape just kind of opens
up and you have these unlike unmarred views of this
(13:38):
tree lined valley. It was so nice, great place to
such a vast valley, vast valley. Also, I remember this
was a perfect occasion for me to wear um one
of my favorite T shirts. It's the one that says
get outside worst case scenario, a bear kills you and
it's got this like little outline that's still ab out
of a bear on it. Yeah. You you actually um
got both of us will Yeah, you of one loved
(14:00):
it so much. Um. But that's super appropriate because Shanon
Doah has one of the largest concentrations of black bears
in the country. Yeah, so the shirt is either appropriate
and funny or tragically ironic. It could go either way.
It could go either way, right, you know, since once
we were done with this trail, we stopped at a
little general store for some like snacks and coffee and stuff,
(14:22):
and and uh surprisingly had a good amount of Virginia
wine bubbles. Yeah, there was a lot of Virginia wine there,
and I was definitely intrigued. I think I probably took
a few photos of them, but I wasn't intriguing enough
to actually purchase any. And I do that a lot.
I'm like, I did that in South Chocota recently too,
where like we're there's all these local wines and I'm like, oh,
how amazing we should get something. I'm just like, no, Um,
(14:45):
I'm just gonna point out because you're frugal, that's how
I'll say it cheap is another way, but yeah, no, no, no,
we just, um, I'm very picky. I guess I gotta budget.
I have this like explosion of excite meant an interest,
and then it like rapidly disappears. Yeah. No, In case
the first drout wasn't enough, we decided to hike to
(15:07):
the top of the highest peak in Jandote. Yeah, because
you know me, I'm a lunatic and I was eager
to do Hawksbill Mountain, which has an elevation of four
thousand and fifty one ft. This is it's actually pretty
low compared to the peaks out west, but by East
Coast standards, it's it's a behemoth. Yeah. Fortunately we didn't
hike the entire four thousand feet, just you know, the
(15:30):
top final stretches all we did. Um, because you're not
that much volunt Yeah, I mean I am, but like
we we didn't. It's just that's just where Skyline Drive
like started, and I thought it made it very doable.
It's cool that we're able to easily do the highest
peak in the park in like the span of an
hour and a half or whatever, and the trail is
(15:50):
actually much shorter than the waterfall hike. It's brief, but
you get a lot of elevation gain in a short distance.
So you have these like steep switch backs through the
woods again, like through the what 'sfortunately lots of tree
cover so the sun isn't beating down on you directly.
And this hike really pays off quickly though, because the
views from up there are really special. Yeah. There's this
little like open cabin structure at the top with some
(16:12):
like bench seating and a rocky edge with some like
show stopping views. I mean you just sit down there
and you know, you just see the we like the
Skyline Drive weaving along the mountain ridge, and you could
just see so much from up there that it's just
truly special. Like how many like small clouds you saw
floating over the road when we were there, and it
(16:33):
just felt like we were soaring now, Yeah, it really did.
I love being that high up above Skyline Drive, which
is a different angle, and it's a beautiful road just
to look at from afar. How it like kind of
wines and like we use lawn this mountain ridge. It
kind of felt like we're levitating about the park just
looking down at it. And this view really shows you
just how expansive and lush. All of Shenandoah is dense
(16:56):
green trees for days. I remember getting up to the
top of that and we um took a picture for
our friend Diana because it was her birth center, like
this birthday message, and you know, Um, that's the one
thing that's fun is like when we're on these journeys
that we can just stop for a second send a
picture to somebody just saying you're thinking of you. You know.
I think I joked that we hiked the highest mountain
(17:17):
in Shannondoah for you today, you know, and it was
just one of those fun moments. Just appreciated it. Yeah,
just to reconnect with people, so while we're doing this,
so that's actually a fun part of the National Parks
and what we love to do. Yeah, totally. But and
then after this, you did another hike. Yeah, I know,
I'm just kind of NonStop. But I wanted more like
(17:40):
waterfall stuff because like, there are so many waterfalls here
and they're so different in different environments. And it just
worked out well because shortly after the Hawk Fall Mountain,
we would just drive down Skyline drive I think enough
early twenty miles or so, and I did the Doyles
River Falls. It's about three miles round trip with upper
and lower alls, so you get these different segments of
(18:02):
this river and different looking waterfalls within the same river,
which is kind of crazy. It also goes down before
coming back up, similar to the previous waterfall hike, and
the waterfalls here are much broader and shorter, so you
have a completely different experience. I feel like these ones
personally were more impressive than they were than the first
(18:23):
high we did together, just because there's so much more water.
The river was wider, so you get more of this
like rushing, raging river vibe, and they're just deep down
in the heart of this thick forest, so it almost
had this like jungle effect, just how thick the woods
were and how green it was. Go ahead, just rub
it into my face. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. You
(18:44):
came back super exhausten sway though, and you never sweat,
so I knew that was a tough one. That's that's
a sure sign. But I think it's because I'm so
inherently competitive, even if it's just myself in my head,
it's a problem because I remember leaving the r V
and I was like, oh, you back in like an
hour and half probably, And then so since I gave
myself unnecessarily like a timeline, then I'm like, well I
(19:06):
have to do that. So like I like speed hecked down, um,
got a bunch of waterfall views and photos, and then
hustled back up. And it's nothing but uphill and a
lot of its steep. So I was just like speed
hiking trail running out a few points like again, totally unnecessary. Yeah,
but I don't know, I just like I guess I
(19:30):
made good time because I was just raising myself against
the clock for no apparent reason, and I was so
thirsty and sweaty by the end of it. Yeah, I'd say,
now it is a good time to to applod Shannondoah
for being so dang awesome with its hiking markers. Um.
You know, not only the trailheads are really clear and
the overall layout of the park is really easy to navigate,
(19:51):
but there's also like organized trailblazes everywhere that make it
super simple to follow and race against yourself exactly. Yeah,
thank thank you Generoah for that. Um. But everything is
very well marked and clear, very easy to follow, hard
to get lost. So the trail system works like blue
blazes indicate a hiking trail, white blazes indicate the Appalachian Trail,
(20:15):
and then yellow blazes are horse trails, but that beings
that hikers can go on any of them as they please.
So the whole park is really free rain for hikers
and I couldn't love that more. Obviously, even Skyline Drive
is well marked. I mean, while mile marker is along
the entire drive very apparent. It's also obvious to find
where you are in a GPS or a map and
(20:37):
to figure out where you want to go. Yeah, for sure.
So like when you're reading about it, or look at
your visitor guy that you pick up and you want
to pick out a hiking trail, they're all denoted by
like what mile marker it is, so like this waterfall
hike is at mile sixty seven, or like this one's
at mile eight one, so you know exactly where you are,
and they have all these my mile markers along the road,
(20:59):
and it's it's so easy and very refreshing, especially when
you compare it to some of the larger, more overwhelming
parks out West. Snada was really just a piece of
cake to navigate history. So let's talk about some of
the background in the history for a bit. Shenandoah was
designated as a National park in ninety five, and it's
(21:21):
located in western Virginia in a land area about two
hundred thousand acres and almost eighty thousand acres of which
are pure wilderness. So there's a ton of backcountry goodness
to be found here for those incline to get off
the beaten path a little bit. Yeah. I mean it
might be less than a hundred years old as a
(21:41):
national park, but there's a lot of history here too.
I mean for starters, there's some old rocks here. Yeah,
Like some of the rocks here are old enough to
make dinosaurs seemed like newborn babies. By comparison, some of
the rocks day back more than a billion years old,
like the Grenville Age granitic basement rocks. That's actually what
helped like form Shannandoah. Yeah, essentially, these rocks kind of
(22:03):
created the foundation for it. They like rose more than
a billion years ago, and the rocks are similar. We're
created by similar forces to like the Himalayas. This process,
this mountain range emerging from these tectonic plates shifting via
ancient collisions underneath the Earth's surface and imagining a billion
(22:25):
years back, this this land in Virginia was Himalayan looking
mountain range and now they've eroded in the subsequent hundreds
of millions of years to what we're left with now
with Shenandoah, these much smaller mountains that look more like
rolling green hills and these ancient rocks that kind of
formed the foundation of it. And that's just crazy because
(22:47):
people don't even like start to give this park its
dues until the nineteen hundreds, when like President Calvin Cooliage
sought to create more National parks on the East coast.
At the time, Makadia was the only National park on
the side of the country. Yeah, and legislators were hustling
to spread the love, especially seeing like all the first
national parks out west like Gallistone and Tsiquoysembity and Mountain
(23:08):
near and it just wasn't fair, No, not at all.
So Coolidge worked with the National Park Service to help
acchoire Land to form Shanandoah National Park and the great
now Smokey Mountains. Yeah, and it was about time. Yeah,
everyone was seeing how successful the national parks out west
were and how they helped local economies, so people in
(23:29):
Virginia really wanted to get in on that park. Yeah,
understandably so. The Turkey thing though, when farming Senada was
that the region here in Virginia was inhabited by a
lot of local farmers and residents, so there was a
ton of private property to contend with, unlike this landscape
out west, which are just vast and occupied, and the
(23:50):
government had to either buy them out and or promised
that some older residents could still live on their properties
for the rest of their lives. Which is so interesting
to me that you could potentially be living in a
national park because you're just grandfather Dan. I'm jealous. I
am too. I would love to live and die in
a national park. And the final resident here Shenandoah was
(24:10):
this woman, Annie Lee Bradley Shank. She died at her
home in Shenandoah in nine at the age of ninety two.
Even the new president, Herbert Hoover, was asked to turn
over some land because no one was above the National
Park Service. Yeah, that's nice to see. So he owned
a fishing camp called Rapidan Camp, which is near the
(24:33):
Rapidan River in the park. He used it at the
time as a little vacation ghettoo in the woods, which
actually sounds like a really lovely idea for a president.
I'm sure privacy and serenity is hard to come by,
but fortunately for all of us, he was willing to
turn it over to help create an establish Shenando National Park,
and visitors today can tour the fishing camp with the
(24:54):
ranger guided trips. Yeah. Once the park was established and
immediately helped boost the local economy, giving jobs to the locals.
The Civilian Conservation Corps. The c SEC provided training and
work for thousands of people during the Great Depression UM
when the work was needed really the most. Yeah, that's awesome.
And people flocked here like crazy, they were so excited
(25:15):
for Virginia's National Park. I remember reading about this and
seeing photos of crazy traffic and one of the visitors
centers and just like the immense onslaught of people once,
like you know, opening day, it was like opening day
at disney World or something. When all these people flocked,
they were just they couldn't wait. Yes, food. So about
(25:35):
halfway down Skyline Drive we exited the park after doing
a few hikes that day, and we spent the night
in a beautiful RV park in this town called Laray, Virginia,
which is one of the more popular mountain towns for
park visitors. Yeah, it's a pretty small town, but it's
really pretty and peaceful and the people are nice. Our
V park was great to had more than one swimming
(25:55):
pool and some serious looking water slides too. I know,
like six blogs how our water slides looked looked great.
I didn't go in, but it looked great. It also
had this arcade with a bunch of cool looking games,
including like this multiplayer arcade version of that Nintendo game
Luigi's Mansion, which I had never seen in that format before.
Just amazing. I guess Larray, Virginia is like on the
(26:18):
cutting edge of arcade innovation. It seems someone had recommended
to us that we check out this bar called the Speakeasy,
located in the historic old hotel in the Ray called
the MIM's Land Inn. It's a huge mansion like building
on a hill overlooking the town. Yeah, it reminded me
of like the Clue Mansion, but then again, I have
a tendency to compare anything vintage and ornate to Clue,
(26:41):
so probably take that with a grain of salt. Yeah. Yeah,
we had an RV parked at the campground and we
were trying to call a lift to get into town,
but they didn't exist in the ray, so he wound
up asking someone at the front desk for a cab company.
And apparently there's literally just like this one guy in
town who drives you around if you call them. Yeah.
It was really, I guess, kind of charming. He was nice,
(27:02):
and he was a very old school cab driver, which
fits with the overall vintage vibe of this town and
this hotel and this bar. Yeah, he was so nice.
I mean, he was very informative about the whole area
in the park, and it's always nice to like get
and meet those between ers, the the locals. Yeah, and
he also knew a lot about birds too. I remember
(27:25):
he described himself as a birder. And I don't remember
where he was from originally where he grew up, but
he told us that he moved to Laray in the
Shenando area because of the birds. Like he's apparently he's
a hardcore burder where he's willing to uproot his life
to look at birds. Yeah, we have to go back
on a trip with Brooke because he loves brock our nephew.
(27:47):
He loves birding, and that's the person to take him around.
But I guess that's enough about birding, So let's go
ahead and talk about that speakeasy. What's really wasn't it speaking, Yeah,
speakeasy is a bit misleading. I'm not sure that this
hotel really knows what a speakeasy is. Um. Maybe they
(28:08):
just think it's like a somewhat subterranean lounge or something,
because that's basically what it is. It's this dimly lit
downstairs bar slash restaurant. There's nothing super speakeasy or like
secretive about it. It's just this. It's great though, It's
this cozy hotel bar, and we loved it. Um, I'm
glad we went. We were very happy to be here
drinking cocktails in this swank little setting. Oh yeah, and
(28:31):
they had your basic classics like Margarita's and apple martini.
Right now, very sex in the city is surprisingly in
the unlikeliest place I did not. Laray does not strike
me as the type of place where you could get
an apple martini, But here we are. Yeah, they were
kind of sweet for our taste. Um, so we wanted
getting some local Virginia wine, which was surprisingly great. Yeah,
so I'm glad that we finally got to try it
(28:52):
without actually buying a bottle at that visitor center. We
can just that's this is what I like. I like
to try it. I don't like to commit to a
whole bottle because try then. Yeah. Right, So I remember
for dinner having this salmon dish with bourbon glaze, wild rice,
green beans, ambitious and delicious, and then we had apple
pie for dessert. I think all amode naturally. Yeah, you
(29:15):
can't eat apple pie without ice cream, though, it's like
eating dry without cheese. Yeah, I don't know interest in that.
In this ice cream too, it wasn't just like vanilla.
It was like cinnamon ice cream, which was perfect, and
it added like just the right amount of spice and
sweetness as it melted down to the apples, which we're
already kind of cinnamony and I can't get enough cinnamon.
So this was great. We'll be back with more of
(29:41):
the Parklandia podcast from My Heart Radio My Favorite. Hi.
I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This is Parklandia and we're
wrapping up our episode on Shenandoah National Park talking with
each other about our favorite parts of this park. M Brad,
(30:02):
do you wanna tell me what your favorite part of
Sanandotah was? Yes? The fog. It just said such like beautiful,
like eerie feeling, And I just I love that about
National parks. When you're at one high up in the
mountains you have this fog you're driving through it, or
when you park and you just look back in your
(30:22):
r V, is like it looks like it belongs in
a movie. I just fog is my favorite thing. Yeah, well,
fog and miss too, what's your I think my favorite
part was the Doyles river Falls trail that I did.
That I hustled through. The river views were disincredible, but
also the trail itself, I wish I kind of slow
down and enjoyed it a little bit more from like
(30:44):
a you know, did that like a sane person, because
the trail was glorious and really relaxing, pretty uncrowded, and
part of the way down the trail to I didn't
mention this earlier, but I took this little I accidentally
took this little side trail which I didn't really mean
to take, but it goes up by this old cabin,
which isn't just this abandoned cabin, and it was just
(31:07):
me alone up there, a little creepy, a little eerie.
I could definitely see this being haunted. Um, but it was.
It was interesting and seeing this aspect of it too,
and then being like where am I? Like? What did
I take a wrong turn? Because obviously this isn't a waterfall? Um?
But yeah, just the way that this park and the
(31:30):
woods have been used by various people over the years
for hunting or fishing and exploration, and then now with
the applation through hikers as well. So that was not
a little glimpse into that, I guess inadvertently, But that
trail was was awesome and those waterfalls were extraordinary. I
really really liked it. Yeah, I'd really love to bring
(31:51):
like enough things to like make your own cocktails. And
you know you're going to need to bring your hiking
backpack to go on that Applaian trail, right, No, no,
I'm gonna bring you in RV driving behind me. So
what three things to do bring to this park? What
three things would I bring? I think I would bring
(32:12):
stuff to have a picnic. I think this feels like
the type of place that's a great picnic park, got it.
I'll bring the cocktail stuff. You bring the picnic stuff. Yeah, sure, Yeah,
there we go. That's one in one. That's another thing
you would bring. Another thing I would bring would be
my Um well, I would just bring my same T shirt,
my black bear T shirt, because this is the place
to wear that. I think everybody appreciates the shirt and
(32:36):
it just really really fits. And then i'd bring my
hiking sticks because you like to take me on crazy
hikes and they definitely came in hand. Yeah, you bought them. Here,
this is your first part. You bought taking sticks. I
already broke one of them. I know you're like, immediately
broke it. Yeah it's not my phone did last? Uh.
And then I would also bring I think our clue
(32:56):
board game just in theme, go to that clue looking
in and then play the clue game. That's actually a
great idea. Um. I would actually bring fuel because there
came a point where we're like, okay, we're getting long
on fuel because it's a long drive and I didn't
feel it before leaving or entering the park, and so
on upon leaving, I had to get it right away.
(33:19):
M Yeah, that's something to think about. Um, and now
let's talk about like what our dream vacation version of
Senaa would be if we were to come back here
and just kind of go go crazy. Yeah, absolutely, why
don't you start off with this? All right? I will.
I think we should stay at that end the MIM's
ln in. Of course, I'm very curious about that. We
(33:40):
didn't see any of the rims. All we did was
go to the U Speakeasy bar. But I just you
can get a sense of it that it's probably really luxurious,
It's in a very vintage way, so I want to
do that. I also really want to go and just
check out their main restaurant, Circa thirty one is the
name of it, and not only does like superstylish and
(34:01):
swave like the rest of the property, but the restaurant
also hosts dinner shows and Murder Mystery dinners, which could
not be more perfect. We have to do this like
Murder Mystery Dinners, Like I was actually really bummed when
I couldn't do that because you know from Hyahoga Valley
episode how much we love our Murder Mysteries train rides
and dinners, and that would have just been been perfect, right,
(34:24):
I know for anyone who remembers our first episode where
we geeked out on the Murder Mystery train ride, they
know full well about our obsession with murder mysteries and
how crazy and wonderful to discover this hotel, which looks
like the Clue Mansion also host murder mysteries. That's just perfect,
It's literally perfect. And then of course we would also
have to do more hikes exploration of Shannon Douah. Maybe
(34:46):
you can even hike the whole Shannon do a part
of the Appalatian Trail. Um. Yeah, I would totally do that. Yeah,
I think that would be a nice way to dip
my toe into the Appalachian. Just do an easy hundred
mile hike. But you're don't town me that because you
know I'll actually do it, and then you're gonna have
to drive and pick me up and pamper me in
the evenings. They'll be tired pamperings. Right, you have been
(35:13):
listening to park Landia, a show about national parks. Parklandia
is a production of My Heart Radio created by Matt Carrolluac,
Brad Carolluac and Christopher has produced and edited by Mike John's.
Our executive producer is Christopher hasiotis special thanks to Gabrielle Collins,
Crystal Waters and rest of the park Landia crew and
Hey listeners. If you're enjoying the show, leave us a
(35:33):
review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people like you
find our show. You can keep up with us on
social media. Check out our photos from our travels on
Instagram at Parklandia Pod and join in on the conversation
in our Facebook group Parklandia Rangers. From our podcast my
heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows, and as always,
(35:55):
thank you for listening. Al Broke
If you're looking for the perfect place to chase waterfalls
and run from black bears, then capital off with the
naple martini at a makeshift Speak easy. Shenandoah National Park
is the place just for you. That's right. This place
has it all. Bountiful forests, foggy mountaintops, scenic drives, intimidating wildlife,
and quaint Town's filled with chatty cab drivers and friendly
(00:21):
restaurant service. And it's also got a lot of history too.
We're excited to share all of our findings about this
wonderful Virginia park. Hi, I'm Matt and then Brad. This
is the park Landia Podcast from my Heart Radio. We
packed up our stuff in Chicago and moved into an
r V and now we're shopping the country full time
with our dog fin exploring America's national parks. They we're
(00:45):
talking about Shenandoah in Virginia. So, for some unfair reason,
a vast majority of national park in the US are
clustered out west, with only a few scattered along the
East coast. And as someone who grew up on the
(01:06):
East Coast, I am personally offended by this. But at
least you have gems like Shannon Doah to brag about. Yeah,
I mean, I do not even want to talk though,
because like most of the parks I visited growing up,
we're out west, or like all of them were out west,
even though I grew up like four hours from Acadius.
So I'm basically a total hypocrite complaining about this. And
(01:27):
in this case, I I've never been to Shenandoah when
I was a kid, so my gripeing is kind of unfounded.
But as an adult now, like why there there should
be more? Of the East Coast is beautiful and Shenandoah
perfectly exemplifies that. Yeah. And when you and I went
in the spring, it was the first time for both
of us, and it really just blew us away. I mean,
I was I wasn't expecting to see this like rich
(01:51):
Green Mountain, with these beautiful valleys and the in betweens
and the dotted with clouds and patches from this misty fog.
I mean, it just looked like something out of a movie. Yeah,
or this hauntingly beautiful dream, especially in the morning. Not
a sound cliche or anything, but shenan Doah is the
kind of place that really defies cliches. It's just that good. Yeah.
(02:11):
I was exciting to visit a national park together that
neither of us have experienced before or knew much about.
You know, we were going in completely fresh and open minded. Yeah,
that's true, like total blank slate. And we were at
this time fresh off a few days in Richmond, which
is one of my favorite cities ever. And we were
there because you were selling syrup in an event. Um,
(02:31):
do you want to talk a little bit about that
and then we can gush about Richmond maybe because I
can't resist. Yeah, No, I mean I really love those events. Um.
That one was the Bizarre Bizarre, And love the name yeah,
and it's spelt two different ways, just because it's that fancy.
They're so clever and so um. I really enjoyed going
to that event and selling Burns Maplewood Farm maple syrup,
(02:52):
and and it was just a really great time going
into Virginia. And I remember buying tickets for that baseball
game for the Long Day. I remember that was just
horrific because I was like, Oh, I'm so excited, we're
going Opening Day and then it's like, not, those are
for tomorrow. Yeah, and then yeah, that sucked. But we
(03:14):
wound up going to see the pet Cemetery movie at
this great movie theater nearby, and the movie theater had
a bar with hefty wine pores, so it probably worked
out for the best, to be honest. But Richmond is
so yeah, great, and it's a great place to spend
a few days visiting the wonderful restaurants there, neighborhoods, and
they have hiking trails in the city and around the
(03:34):
James River, so it's a good, little, good place to
pregame before making the drive, very doable drive to Shenandoah,
which we did. And this was all kind of in
the midst of a few months being on the East
Coast up and down for these different events that you
were working at, and we knew at some point we
wanted to make it to Shenandoah, but we needed to
(03:57):
be strategic about it because this was spring and is
notoriously fickle in terms of weather, so we needed to
wait until enough time had gone by where things were
warming up and the snowy mountains could thought out more.
And it needs to be drivable for our RV for sure, absolutely.
I mean for an East Coast park, this place has
(04:17):
a pretty impressive elevation. I mean things can get cold
and snow up there above the clouds. Yeah, this is
definitely an elevated place by East Coast standards for sure.
And I I loved it. I was really blown away.
And it's the main part of it that you're driving
through was this road called Skyline Drive. And I honestly,
(04:37):
I don't know if I told you this at the
time we're driving through, but I was definitely thinking it.
I feel like Skyline Drive should be a level on
the next Mario Mario Kart game, you know, right, definitely,
because it's like it's like Rainbow Road. It felt like
Rambow Road, but like safer but National Parks Edition National
Parks Rainbow Road, um, not in outer space. And so
(04:58):
Skyline Drive is this long hundred and five mile main
road that runs along the crest of the Blue Ridge
Mountains from the park's northern end to its southern end. Yeah,
it's definitely one of those, like the most ultimate scenic
drives in the entire National Park Service. I mean, it's
a must drive for any road trip. Yeah. But seriously,
that we drove the whole entire thing, didn't we um
(05:20):
or most of it? I think at least at least
seven percent. I think there was a section maybe towards
the far something end that was closed off for road
damn it or something, but we did drive a vast
majority of it. And skyline drive is iconic for good reason.
It takes you deep into dense forest and then up
(05:41):
along some high elevation mountain ridges with these panoramic valley
views on either side of the road along the way.
The overlooks are just killer, and there are so many
of them, and you're gonna want to stop at practically
all of them, I mean, because each viewpoint just gets
better and better and higher and better. How you get
(06:01):
the better it gets. I mean, even though for us
in our V some of these overlooks were a little tricky.
It was kind of hard to park and get in
and out sometimes and we had to back up our V.
But and that's only because the trailer was attached. But
even then it was still wasn't that hard. Yeah, some
of them are really narrow and they didn't have like
loop type overlooks, So these are the ones you had
(06:23):
to kind of pull into then pull out of, and
with an RV, that how the trailer being towed behind it.
That was really tricky, and I don't know how you
do it, Honestly, I could never just thinking I get
I was just sitting the vac sat nervously by to
my nails and holding fin which is I'm sure very
helpful for you. I appreciate your emotional support. Yeah, that's
my pattern. But anyways, the Skyline Drive is so incredible
(06:44):
that it actually became the first road to east of
the Mississippi River to be named a National Historic Landmark
on the National Register of Historic Places. And it's also
a National Scenic Byway. That's amazing. It's this road has
more accolades than Meryl Street. Oh, it's the Meryl Streep
of scenic drives. That's yeah. Yeah, and it totally it
(07:05):
really is the leading lady of this park too. Genandoah
is um to give you a sense of the geography
of this place. It's a pretty long, narrow park, mostly
anchored by Skyline Drive. It's but not only is it
known as the scenic drive destination, it's a hiking paradise too,
with hundreds of my little trails that branch off either
(07:26):
side of Skyline Drive. Yeah, you can actually hike care
for months and so miles of trails to explore, including
about a hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail, which we're
right through the entire length of the park. Yeah, and
that was really cool. So now we can officially say
that we've hiked part of the Appalation Trail together, like
little snippets of it. Let's be honest, we were probably
weren't going to be hiking the rest of the trail
(07:47):
anytime soon. Yeah. I think we actually talked about this
while we're hiking here, like on the first trail, because
we did part of the Appalachian and me, I, I
just started like thinking and ruminating, and I remember saying
to you how it'd be fun to do the entire
Appalation one day, but only on the condition that you
drive alongside me so that I don't have to carry
(08:08):
a backpacker campital and so I would do like the
glamping version of the Appalaian Trail. Like I said, we
probably won't be hiking rest this trail anytime soon, Okay, okay,
I mean one day, one day, you'll you'll understand. Until then,
I'll just wait patiently until you change your mind. And
in the meantime, there's plenty of trails to hike at
Shenandoah that don't include the appalation. On the west side
(08:32):
of the park is the Shenandoah Valley, and the east
has the Virginia Piedmont region, which has endless rolling hills
and mountains. The west felt more lush and kind of
rainforest like to me, at least once you hike down
into the woods. It's really like the best of both
worlds in one park. You have like these thick rainforesty
forests and then these like super kind of foggy, smoky
(08:53):
mountains on the other and these deep valleys. It's magnificent.
Speaking of valleys, I cannot to talk to you about
what's on the other side if some of these valleys
when we get back from this short break. Hi, I'm
(09:20):
Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Landia, and today
we're talking about Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. For us,
our entry point to Shanondo was from the front Royal
Virginia at the park's most northern entrance, and it's a
small town. We didn't really do anything here aside from
stock up on some groceries um, and then we set
up for the night at a r V park just
(09:41):
a few minutes from the entrance. Yeah, even though it's convenient,
that park was kind of shady. I feel bad for
making reservation there, but I don't really, you're much better
at like researching that stuff and making reservations. Yeah. I
remember driving into the r V park and there were
some random cows just running around and blocking our way.
I mean that was an omen I'm sure, yeah, and
probably should have been signed that we should turn around.
(10:02):
But luckily we only had one night here and then
we're able to wake up early the next day to
get started in the park. And the entrance was right there,
so that's fine. And Skyline Drive, I think, is even
prettier in the morning, Like the earlier you get up
and go, the better because it has all this missed
kind of billowing through and you're driving into it and
then all these chirping birds and some light that's starting
(10:24):
to flicker through the trees. It's all very storybook just enchanting. Yeah,
right away, it just amazes you, and it only gets
better as w you're further and further down the road.
Um and saw all those amazing views. Yeah, for sure.
Trill So after a few of these stops and overlooks,
which took a little bit of time. Our first order
(10:45):
of business was a waterfall hike that I had researched,
called the Overall Run Falls. It's about twenty one miles
down Skyline Drive, and Shenandoah is particularly known for its
abundant waterfalls, especially of the tall cascading variety like this one.
So I picked this trail, which is moderately strenuous. It
goes down at first to lead to this waterfall valley
(11:08):
off Skyline Drive, and then you obviously turn around and
hype back up. Altogether, it's about six and a half
miles round trip with uh half tea amount of elevation game.
It's about eight hundred feet worth of elevation game, so
it's nothing to scoff at. Yeah, it's like deceiving at first, though,
because when you're going down, it makes you think that
(11:29):
the whole trail is going to be easy and relaxing.
But when then you remember then the farther down you go,
you're gonna have to go right back, and uh, I
don't think I was too happy about that. Yeah, I
don't think we're We thoroughly thought that through like we
had a very leisurely comfortable chat on the way down
about me wanting to do the appellation and like guilging
(11:50):
you into driving alongside me, right right, And then we
had a nice little lunch and then on the return
long I was like, oh, right, we have to go up,
like friendly reminder. And I'm also not that great at
being a motivational coach. I remember like we were hiking
up and I kept like speed hiking up ahead of
you and then waiting for you to catch up, and
(12:12):
then doing it again and repeating this process, and I
think it was really annoying. It was like the most
annoying way I could have hiked for you, Like it
wasn't I played the fifth Yeah, But we started chatting
with this other hiker who was obsessed with dashall parks
like we were. And I think he was from Minnesota.
Um that sounds right, Yeah, And he was in the
area to check out Shannondo as well. Yeah, he was.
(12:33):
He was very nice, very and it was a nice
pleasant distraction to to have someone to someone else to
chat with on the way up, especially towards the last
leg of this return trip. And he was clearly equally
as eager for the child to be over. And I
also think that's something you guys bonded over as I
like flitted around you like an annoying like a mosquito. Yeah,
(12:55):
you were basically just like running circles around us, and
we were like huffing and puffing and and but the
trail really was worthwhile. Yeah, any trail is, and it's
all about the journey, not the destination. So true. The
waterfall was beautiful. I mean it was quite tall with
like a drop, and it provided this great view of
the like super green forest in the Shantandoah Valley with
(13:17):
all these rocks ledges that ran up above the waterfall
for great foot opportunities. And yeah, really good. I know that.
I love the rocky ledges with like the waterfall. TiO
left and it's really tall, one of the tallest in
the park. And then the landscape just kind of opens
up and you have these unlike unmarred views of this
(13:38):
tree lined valley. It was so nice, great place to
such a vast valley, vast valley. Also, I remember this
was a perfect occasion for me to wear um one
of my favorite T shirts. It's the one that says
get outside worst case scenario, a bear kills you and
it's got this like little outline that's still ab out
of a bear on it. Yeah. You you actually um
got both of us will Yeah, you of one loved
(14:00):
it so much. Um. But that's super appropriate because Shanon
Doah has one of the largest concentrations of black bears
in the country. Yeah, so the shirt is either appropriate
and funny or tragically ironic. It could go either way.
It could go either way, right, you know, since once
we were done with this trail, we stopped at a
little general store for some like snacks and coffee and stuff,
(14:22):
and and uh surprisingly had a good amount of Virginia
wine bubbles. Yeah, there was a lot of Virginia wine there,
and I was definitely intrigued. I think I probably took
a few photos of them, but I wasn't intriguing enough
to actually purchase any. And I do that a lot.
I'm like, I did that in South Chocota recently too,
where like we're there's all these local wines and I'm like, oh,
how amazing we should get something. I'm just like, no, Um,
(14:45):
I'm just gonna point out because you're frugal, that's how
I'll say it cheap is another way, but yeah, no, no, no,
we just, um, I'm very picky. I guess I gotta budget.
I have this like explosion of excite meant an interest,
and then it like rapidly disappears. Yeah. No, In case
the first drout wasn't enough, we decided to hike to
(15:07):
the top of the highest peak in Jandote. Yeah, because
you know me, I'm a lunatic and I was eager
to do Hawksbill Mountain, which has an elevation of four
thousand and fifty one ft. This is it's actually pretty
low compared to the peaks out west, but by East
Coast standards, it's it's a behemoth. Yeah. Fortunately we didn't
hike the entire four thousand feet, just you know, the
(15:30):
top final stretches all we did. Um, because you're not
that much volunt Yeah, I mean I am, but like
we we didn't. It's just that's just where Skyline Drive
like started, and I thought it made it very doable.
It's cool that we're able to easily do the highest
peak in the park in like the span of an
hour and a half or whatever, and the trail is
(15:50):
actually much shorter than the waterfall hike. It's brief, but
you get a lot of elevation gain in a short distance.
So you have these like steep switch backs through the
woods again, like through the what 'sfortunately lots of tree
cover so the sun isn't beating down on you directly.
And this hike really pays off quickly though, because the
views from up there are really special. Yeah. There's this
little like open cabin structure at the top with some
(16:12):
like bench seating and a rocky edge with some like
show stopping views. I mean you just sit down there
and you know, you just see the we like the
Skyline Drive weaving along the mountain ridge, and you could
just see so much from up there that it's just
truly special. Like how many like small clouds you saw
floating over the road when we were there, and it
(16:33):
just felt like we were soaring now, Yeah, it really did.
I love being that high up above Skyline Drive, which
is a different angle, and it's a beautiful road just
to look at from afar. How it like kind of
wines and like we use lawn this mountain ridge. It
kind of felt like we're levitating about the park just
looking down at it. And this view really shows you
just how expansive and lush. All of Shenandoah is dense
(16:56):
green trees for days. I remember getting up to the
top of that and we um took a picture for
our friend Diana because it was her birth center, like
this birthday message, and you know, Um, that's the one
thing that's fun is like when we're on these journeys
that we can just stop for a second send a
picture to somebody just saying you're thinking of you. You know.
I think I joked that we hiked the highest mountain
(17:17):
in Shannondoah for you today, you know, and it was
just one of those fun moments. Just appreciated it. Yeah,
just to reconnect with people, so while we're doing this,
so that's actually a fun part of the National Parks
and what we love to do. Yeah, totally. But and
then after this, you did another hike. Yeah, I know,
I'm just kind of NonStop. But I wanted more like
(17:40):
waterfall stuff because like, there are so many waterfalls here
and they're so different in different environments. And it just
worked out well because shortly after the Hawk Fall Mountain,
we would just drive down Skyline drive I think enough
early twenty miles or so, and I did the Doyles
River Falls. It's about three miles round trip with upper
and lower alls, so you get these different segments of
(18:02):
this river and different looking waterfalls within the same river,
which is kind of crazy. It also goes down before
coming back up, similar to the previous waterfall hike, and
the waterfalls here are much broader and shorter, so you
have a completely different experience. I feel like these ones
personally were more impressive than they were than the first
(18:23):
high we did together, just because there's so much more water.
The river was wider, so you get more of this
like rushing, raging river vibe, and they're just deep down
in the heart of this thick forest, so it almost
had this like jungle effect, just how thick the woods
were and how green it was. Go ahead, just rub
it into my face. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. You
(18:44):
came back super exhausten sway though, and you never sweat,
so I knew that was a tough one. That's that's
a sure sign. But I think it's because I'm so
inherently competitive, even if it's just myself in my head,
it's a problem because I remember leaving the r V
and I was like, oh, you back in like an
hour and half probably, And then so since I gave
myself unnecessarily like a timeline, then I'm like, well I
(19:06):
have to do that. So like I like speed hecked down, um,
got a bunch of waterfall views and photos, and then
hustled back up. And it's nothing but uphill and a
lot of its steep. So I was just like speed
hiking trail running out a few points like again, totally unnecessary. Yeah,
but I don't know, I just like I guess I
(19:30):
made good time because I was just raising myself against
the clock for no apparent reason, and I was so
thirsty and sweaty by the end of it. Yeah, I'd say,
now it is a good time to to applod Shannondoah
for being so dang awesome with its hiking markers. Um.
You know, not only the trailheads are really clear and
the overall layout of the park is really easy to navigate,
(19:51):
but there's also like organized trailblazes everywhere that make it
super simple to follow and race against yourself exactly. Yeah,
thank thank you Generoah for that. Um. But everything is
very well marked and clear, very easy to follow, hard
to get lost. So the trail system works like blue
blazes indicate a hiking trail, white blazes indicate the Appalachian Trail,
(20:15):
and then yellow blazes are horse trails, but that beings
that hikers can go on any of them as they please.
So the whole park is really free rain for hikers
and I couldn't love that more. Obviously, even Skyline Drive
is well marked. I mean, while mile marker is along
the entire drive very apparent. It's also obvious to find
where you are in a GPS or a map and
(20:37):
to figure out where you want to go. Yeah, for sure.
So like when you're reading about it, or look at
your visitor guy that you pick up and you want
to pick out a hiking trail, they're all denoted by
like what mile marker it is, so like this waterfall
hike is at mile sixty seven, or like this one's
at mile eight one, so you know exactly where you are,
and they have all these my mile markers along the road,
(20:59):
and it's it's so easy and very refreshing, especially when
you compare it to some of the larger, more overwhelming
parks out West. Snada was really just a piece of
cake to navigate history. So let's talk about some of
the background in the history for a bit. Shenandoah was
designated as a National park in ninety five, and it's
(21:21):
located in western Virginia in a land area about two
hundred thousand acres and almost eighty thousand acres of which
are pure wilderness. So there's a ton of backcountry goodness
to be found here for those incline to get off
the beaten path a little bit. Yeah. I mean it
might be less than a hundred years old as a
(21:41):
national park, but there's a lot of history here too.
I mean for starters, there's some old rocks here. Yeah,
Like some of the rocks here are old enough to
make dinosaurs seemed like newborn babies. By comparison, some of
the rocks day back more than a billion years old,
like the Grenville Age granitic basement rocks. That's actually what
helped like form Shannandoah. Yeah, essentially, these rocks kind of
(22:03):
created the foundation for it. They like rose more than
a billion years ago, and the rocks are similar. We're
created by similar forces to like the Himalayas. This process,
this mountain range emerging from these tectonic plates shifting via
ancient collisions underneath the Earth's surface and imagining a billion
(22:25):
years back, this this land in Virginia was Himalayan looking
mountain range and now they've eroded in the subsequent hundreds
of millions of years to what we're left with now
with Shenandoah, these much smaller mountains that look more like
rolling green hills and these ancient rocks that kind of
formed the foundation of it. And that's just crazy because
(22:47):
people don't even like start to give this park its
dues until the nineteen hundreds, when like President Calvin Cooliage
sought to create more National parks on the East coast.
At the time, Makadia was the only National park on
the side of the country. Yeah, and legislators were hustling
to spread the love, especially seeing like all the first
national parks out west like Gallistone and Tsiquoysembity and Mountain
(23:08):
near and it just wasn't fair, No, not at all.
So Coolidge worked with the National Park Service to help
acchoire Land to form Shanandoah National Park and the great
now Smokey Mountains. Yeah, and it was about time. Yeah,
everyone was seeing how successful the national parks out west
were and how they helped local economies, so people in
(23:29):
Virginia really wanted to get in on that park. Yeah,
understandably so. The Turkey thing though, when farming Senada was
that the region here in Virginia was inhabited by a
lot of local farmers and residents, so there was a
ton of private property to contend with, unlike this landscape
out west, which are just vast and occupied, and the
(23:50):
government had to either buy them out and or promised
that some older residents could still live on their properties
for the rest of their lives. Which is so interesting
to me that you could potentially be living in a
national park because you're just grandfather Dan. I'm jealous. I
am too. I would love to live and die in
a national park. And the final resident here Shenandoah was
(24:10):
this woman, Annie Lee Bradley Shank. She died at her
home in Shenandoah in nine at the age of ninety two.
Even the new president, Herbert Hoover, was asked to turn
over some land because no one was above the National
Park Service. Yeah, that's nice to see. So he owned
a fishing camp called Rapidan Camp, which is near the
(24:33):
Rapidan River in the park. He used it at the
time as a little vacation ghettoo in the woods, which
actually sounds like a really lovely idea for a president.
I'm sure privacy and serenity is hard to come by,
but fortunately for all of us, he was willing to
turn it over to help create an establish Shenando National Park,
and visitors today can tour the fishing camp with the
(24:54):
ranger guided trips. Yeah. Once the park was established and
immediately helped boost the local economy, giving jobs to the locals.
The Civilian Conservation Corps. The c SEC provided training and
work for thousands of people during the Great Depression UM
when the work was needed really the most. Yeah, that's awesome.
And people flocked here like crazy, they were so excited
(25:15):
for Virginia's National Park. I remember reading about this and
seeing photos of crazy traffic and one of the visitors
centers and just like the immense onslaught of people once,
like you know, opening day, it was like opening day
at disney World or something. When all these people flocked,
they were just they couldn't wait. Yes, food. So about
(25:35):
halfway down Skyline Drive we exited the park after doing
a few hikes that day, and we spent the night
in a beautiful RV park in this town called Laray, Virginia,
which is one of the more popular mountain towns for
park visitors. Yeah, it's a pretty small town, but it's
really pretty and peaceful and the people are nice. Our
V park was great to had more than one swimming
(25:55):
pool and some serious looking water slides too. I know,
like six blogs how our water slides looked looked great.
I didn't go in, but it looked great. It also
had this arcade with a bunch of cool looking games,
including like this multiplayer arcade version of that Nintendo game
Luigi's Mansion, which I had never seen in that format before.
Just amazing. I guess Larray, Virginia is like on the
(26:18):
cutting edge of arcade innovation. It seems someone had recommended
to us that we check out this bar called the Speakeasy,
located in the historic old hotel in the Ray called
the MIM's Land Inn. It's a huge mansion like building
on a hill overlooking the town. Yeah, it reminded me
of like the Clue Mansion, but then again, I have
a tendency to compare anything vintage and ornate to Clue,
(26:41):
so probably take that with a grain of salt. Yeah. Yeah,
we had an RV parked at the campground and we
were trying to call a lift to get into town,
but they didn't exist in the ray, so he wound
up asking someone at the front desk for a cab company.
And apparently there's literally just like this one guy in
town who drives you around if you call them. Yeah.
It was really, I guess, kind of charming. He was nice,
(27:02):
and he was a very old school cab driver, which
fits with the overall vintage vibe of this town and
this hotel and this bar. Yeah, he was so nice.
I mean, he was very informative about the whole area
in the park, and it's always nice to like get
and meet those between ers, the the locals. Yeah, and
he also knew a lot about birds too. I remember
(27:25):
he described himself as a birder. And I don't remember
where he was from originally where he grew up, but
he told us that he moved to Laray in the
Shenando area because of the birds. Like he's apparently he's
a hardcore burder where he's willing to uproot his life
to look at birds. Yeah, we have to go back
on a trip with Brooke because he loves brock our nephew.
(27:47):
He loves birding, and that's the person to take him around.
But I guess that's enough about birding, So let's go
ahead and talk about that speakeasy. What's really wasn't it speaking, Yeah,
speakeasy is a bit misleading. I'm not sure that this
hotel really knows what a speakeasy is. Um. Maybe they
(28:08):
just think it's like a somewhat subterranean lounge or something,
because that's basically what it is. It's this dimly lit
downstairs bar slash restaurant. There's nothing super speakeasy or like
secretive about it. It's just this. It's great though, It's
this cozy hotel bar, and we loved it. Um, I'm
glad we went. We were very happy to be here
drinking cocktails in this swank little setting. Oh yeah, and
(28:31):
they had your basic classics like Margarita's and apple martini.
Right now, very sex in the city is surprisingly in
the unlikeliest place I did not. Laray does not strike
me as the type of place where you could get
an apple martini, But here we are. Yeah, they were
kind of sweet for our taste. Um, so we wanted
getting some local Virginia wine, which was surprisingly great. Yeah,
so I'm glad that we finally got to try it
(28:52):
without actually buying a bottle at that visitor center. We
can just that's this is what I like. I like
to try it. I don't like to commit to a
whole bottle because try then. Yeah. Right, So I remember
for dinner having this salmon dish with bourbon glaze, wild rice,
green beans, ambitious and delicious, and then we had apple
pie for dessert. I think all amode naturally. Yeah, you
(29:15):
can't eat apple pie without ice cream, though, it's like
eating dry without cheese. Yeah, I don't know interest in that.
In this ice cream too, it wasn't just like vanilla.
It was like cinnamon ice cream, which was perfect, and
it added like just the right amount of spice and
sweetness as it melted down to the apples, which we're
already kind of cinnamony and I can't get enough cinnamon.
So this was great. We'll be back with more of
(29:41):
the Parklandia podcast from My Heart Radio My Favorite. Hi.
I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This is Parklandia and we're
wrapping up our episode on Shenandoah National Park talking with
each other about our favorite parts of this park. M Brad,
(30:02):
do you wanna tell me what your favorite part of
Sanandotah was? Yes? The fog. It just said such like beautiful,
like eerie feeling, And I just I love that about
National parks. When you're at one high up in the
mountains you have this fog you're driving through it, or
when you park and you just look back in your
(30:22):
r V, is like it looks like it belongs in
a movie. I just fog is my favorite thing. Yeah, well,
fog and miss too, what's your I think my favorite
part was the Doyles river Falls trail that I did.
That I hustled through. The river views were disincredible, but
also the trail itself, I wish I kind of slow
down and enjoyed it a little bit more from like
(30:44):
a you know, did that like a sane person, because
the trail was glorious and really relaxing, pretty uncrowded, and
part of the way down the trail to I didn't
mention this earlier, but I took this little I accidentally
took this little side trail which I didn't really mean
to take, but it goes up by this old cabin,
which isn't just this abandoned cabin, and it was just
(31:07):
me alone up there, a little creepy, a little eerie.
I could definitely see this being haunted. Um, but it was.
It was interesting and seeing this aspect of it too,
and then being like where am I? Like? What did
I take a wrong turn? Because obviously this isn't a waterfall? Um?
But yeah, just the way that this park and the
(31:30):
woods have been used by various people over the years
for hunting or fishing and exploration, and then now with
the applation through hikers as well. So that was not
a little glimpse into that, I guess inadvertently, But that
trail was was awesome and those waterfalls were extraordinary. I
really really liked it. Yeah, I'd really love to bring
(31:51):
like enough things to like make your own cocktails. And
you know you're going to need to bring your hiking
backpack to go on that Applaian trail, right, No, no,
I'm gonna bring you in RV driving behind me. So
what three things to do bring to this park? What
three things would I bring? I think I would bring
(32:12):
stuff to have a picnic. I think this feels like
the type of place that's a great picnic park, got it.
I'll bring the cocktail stuff. You bring the picnic stuff. Yeah, sure, Yeah,
there we go. That's one in one. That's another thing
you would bring. Another thing I would bring would be
my Um well, I would just bring my same T shirt,
my black bear T shirt, because this is the place
to wear that. I think everybody appreciates the shirt and
(32:36):
it just really really fits. And then i'd bring my
hiking sticks because you like to take me on crazy
hikes and they definitely came in hand. Yeah, you bought them. Here,
this is your first part. You bought taking sticks. I
already broke one of them. I know you're like, immediately
broke it. Yeah it's not my phone did last? Uh.
And then I would also bring I think our clue
(32:56):
board game just in theme, go to that clue looking
in and then play the clue game. That's actually a
great idea. Um. I would actually bring fuel because there
came a point where we're like, okay, we're getting long
on fuel because it's a long drive and I didn't
feel it before leaving or entering the park, and so
on upon leaving, I had to get it right away.
(33:19):
M Yeah, that's something to think about. Um, and now
let's talk about like what our dream vacation version of
Senaa would be if we were to come back here
and just kind of go go crazy. Yeah, absolutely, why
don't you start off with this? All right? I will.
I think we should stay at that end the MIM's
ln in. Of course, I'm very curious about that. We
(33:40):
didn't see any of the rims. All we did was
go to the U Speakeasy bar. But I just you
can get a sense of it that it's probably really luxurious,
It's in a very vintage way, so I want to
do that. I also really want to go and just
check out their main restaurant, Circa thirty one is the
name of it, and not only does like superstylish and
(34:01):
swave like the rest of the property, but the restaurant
also hosts dinner shows and Murder Mystery dinners, which could
not be more perfect. We have to do this like
Murder Mystery Dinners, Like I was actually really bummed when
I couldn't do that because you know from Hyahoga Valley
episode how much we love our Murder Mysteries train rides
and dinners, and that would have just been been perfect, right,
(34:24):
I know for anyone who remembers our first episode where
we geeked out on the Murder Mystery train ride, they
know full well about our obsession with murder mysteries and
how crazy and wonderful to discover this hotel, which looks
like the Clue Mansion also host murder mysteries. That's just perfect,
It's literally perfect. And then of course we would also
have to do more hikes exploration of Shannon Douah. Maybe
(34:46):
you can even hike the whole Shannon do a part
of the Appalatian Trail. Um. Yeah, I would totally do that. Yeah,
I think that would be a nice way to dip
my toe into the Appalachian. Just do an easy hundred
mile hike. But you're don't town me that because you
know I'll actually do it, and then you're gonna have
to drive and pick me up and pamper me in
the evenings. They'll be tired pamperings. Right, you have been
(35:13):
listening to park Landia, a show about national parks. Parklandia
is a production of My Heart Radio created by Matt Carrolluac,
Brad Carolluac and Christopher has produced and edited by Mike John's.
Our executive producer is Christopher hasiotis special thanks to Gabrielle Collins,
Crystal Waters and rest of the park Landia crew and
Hey listeners. If you're enjoying the show, leave us a
(35:33):
review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people like you
find our show. You can keep up with us on
social media. Check out our photos from our travels on
Instagram at Parklandia Pod and join in on the conversation
in our Facebook group Parklandia Rangers. From our podcast my
heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows, and as always,
(35:55):
thank you for listening. Al Broke
Parklandia News
Hosts And Creators
Brad Kirouac
Matt Kirouac
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