Ep. 8 - Shenandoah National Park

In this episode Rawleigh & Rae recap their first camping trip of the year to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. They talk car camping and hiking on Rawleigh's birthday weekend.

Episode Transcript

(00:17):
It is 3:36 PM on May 4th here incentral Appalachia.
I am Raleigh. And I'm Ray.
And we are the meandering millennials.
We are two mid 30s millennials here to talk about our lives.
Traveling, homesteading skills, dogs, catch chickens, cooking,
creating, and any other topics might spark our interest today.

(00:37):
You are listening to episode 8 and it will air for you on June
5th, which is about a month out from when we're recording it.
But last weekend we took a little road trip, celebrate
Raleigh's birthday and a little bit of an anniversary and went
to Shenandoah National Park, which is in Virginia, to trial

(00:59):
run our camping gear. So Shenandoah National Park was
finally established December 26th, 1935.
It has a pretty extensive history of how it became to be.
So maybe we'll do an episode later on where we talk a little
about the historical aspects of some of our favorite national
parks. But for today, we're just going
to hit the highlight reel. We have visited Shenandoah

(01:22):
National Park twice. This is our second trip.
The first time was about a year ago and we started the Skyline
Drive, which is the main drag down through, that's about 100
miles, starts in Front Royal, VA, ends in Waynesboro, VA.
So last year we started in FrontRoyal, drove a little bit over

(01:44):
halfway, did a hike on the StonyMan Trail, which Raleigh I'll
talk a little bit about later. And then we cut out before we
got to the end of it just because time constraints.
And this time we switched it up and drove all the way down to
the southern entry point outsideof Waynesboro, VA.
Drove up, spent the night at theCottonwood Campground, and then

(02:05):
did a hike to Mary's Rock Summitthe following day, which Raleigh
will get into what that hike looked like for us, and then
drove the rest of the way home. It was a delightful trip, first
time rolling out the camping gear, trying out the car
camping. Yeah, and I think even if you're
not into hiking, if you're closeto the like the Nova, Northern

(02:28):
Virginia, Southern Maryland area, it's just a beautiful
drive. I mean, even if you just take
the time to drive Skyline Drive,it's 105 miles, but like every
two or three miles there's thesebeautiful odor looks and you
look, you know, either West out into the country, you look E
over towards the shore. But you can see, I mean, for

(02:49):
miles and miles we, I mean, we were lucky.
We got super good weather this time.
And we've got said we'll put thepictures and stuff up on
Instagram. But yeah, it's it's worth just
the drive if you have a day, like I said, if hiking is not
really your deal, It's it's a super nice drive.
Beautiful country out there. You're literally just driving on
the top of, you know, a stretch of the Blue Bridge Mountains in,

(03:09):
in Virginia. So I said just a, a gorgeous
drive, just A2 Lane Rd. I think what you do like 3540,
something like that is the speedlimit.
You'll see a lot of bikers, a lot of people come and bike
because like 105 miles on a bicycle's not unreasonable.
So there's a lot of people that will take that on as a challenge
to, to bike it. But yeah, like I said, even if

(03:31):
that's not your big deal, definitely a fun, a fun trip.
Even if you want to, you know, throw the kiddos or something in
the car and go take a drive and and hang out.
It's pretty cool if if like I said, the camping and hyping is
not really your your whole deal.It's a nice way just to kind of
get out and enjoy something you wouldn't normally enjoy.
Yeah, and I misspoke. It is not Cottonwood Campground.

(03:53):
That's where we're staying. I'd say it's Meadows.
It's Big Meadows. Yeah, I was.
Going to say something staying. At Ted Roosevelt, Yeah, No, just
got it messed up. It's Big Meadows Campground.
All right. So we just wanted to do kind of
like A2 Dayer. So we left our house Saturday
morning and took our sweet time getting to the park and on the

(04:13):
way down we stopped at a all gluten free bakery and Bistro
called Crack a Dawn. There's two locations in
Virginia. 1 is in Harrisonburg. There is one in Waynesboro.
We stopped in the Harrisonburg location.
It was like 130. They closed at 3:00 and they
were kind of sold out of a lot of stuff, which it's a small

(04:34):
space, so I wasn't super surprised.
We were able to get 6 different flavors of cupcakes and take
them with us and kind of eat them throughout the next week, a
couple days. And yeah, there was a nice
little treat just being able to go in and kind of pick whatever
I wanted out of the case. Yeah, I'll say that's not a
luxury we have that often, so it's pretty cool.
The chocolate cupcake was so good that I had to Google and

(04:57):
make sure that it was an all gluten free place because I
thought perhaps I got mixed up somewhere.
But no, all gluten free, yeah. It was very good, said I
wouldn't. If you didn't tell me they were
gluten free, I don't know that Iwould have known.
There you go. Always the hallmark of a good
gluten free treat. So yeah, we took our sweet time

(05:17):
getting down there. We had kind of trial runned
their camping set up in the weeks prior in our driveway just
to make sure I felt comfortable.We thought we had everything we
needed. Anyone who camps or just goes on
trips in general knows that you will forget things.
Somehow we managed to forget lights like flashlights, a lamp,

(05:39):
any anything to light our way after dark.
So luckily we could stop at the local Walmart on our way through
and pick up something to fill that gap.
Anything else we forgot? I mean, I forgot a jacket.
Yeah, you did forget all. Because I totally forgot.
I was thinking like it was because the weather was nice
here. It was like 60s.
When we left, it was 70. 8 When we were in Waynesboro, like

(06:01):
before we entered the park, I mean, it was hot.
So it was nice and I remember thinking before we left like oh
I should grab my fleece or I should grab my puffy or like I
should just take something with some sleep.
It just slipped my mind. We had so much stuff that we
were trying to keep track of because we had packed some the
night before. Like trying to get all that.
We got all the kitchen stuff outand cleaned and made sure that
was all ready to go and just loaded up like one of the big

(06:22):
Tupperware, the 17 liter like commando box things and just
loaded that up and made sure everything was good.
I filled up the we got for camp cooking.
Flame King makes like reusable rechargeable camp cylinders so
you don't have to waste the little 1 LB cylinders.
I know a lot of people are conscious about that, about try

(06:45):
not to waste stuff and you know,reduce, reuse and recycle and
then, you know, leave no trace, just general good camping stuff
you don't want to or you want tominimize waste.
So we looked into that and foundthat, yeah, this company Flame
King makes dot rated 1 LB cylinders that you can just
refill with a standard like 20 LB like grill cylinder.

(07:07):
So I went and got all that stufffilled up and made sure we had
any there. So we were busy all, I mean, I
took Friday off of work because I mean, Friday, my birthday, but
I did took Friday off work and made sure we were all had
everything packed. And so we were pretty busy most
of the day Friday just making sure we had what we needed.
And so inevitably some stuff would slip through.

(07:27):
Remember, I also my my good hiking shoes, my Merrills.
I forgot I mean. I had my cans that.
Weren't ideal, but would work. Yeah, I just, we, we definitely
forgot some stuff. But I think you're, you're going
to learn and you're going to figure stuff out as you go.
And yeah, we had set the tent upjust to make sure everything
would kind of fit and everythingworked before we hauled

(07:50):
everything down there. And I mean, it worked pretty
well. But yeah, we forgot some stuff.
So we stopped at what, Target and Walmart I think.
Yeah, Target didn't have any like camping lights or anything.
Yeah, because then we got like soap because we didn't have any.
So we got just a, like a bar of Doctor Bronner's, just a general
unscented soap. Because when you're out camping

(08:10):
with animals and stuff like that, you don't want scented
stuff. Because they even specifically
had bear boxes at the campground, so you would put all
your food stuff in there so the bears couldn't get to it and so
you wouldn't attract them to thecampground.
Yeah. So got a couple things.
Nothing that was that huge of a deal.
We were only going to be gone one night and.

(08:33):
Yeah, luckily we remembered before we got into the camp,
because when you're the skyline,like I said, you're doing about
40 miles an hour, 105 miles. It was what, probably an hour
and 20 minutes maybe to get to the campground once we enter the
park proper. Yeah, the campground called Big
Meadows Campground is at mile 51.2.
So we entered the park at like mile 101.
So we had 50 miles going 35 miles an hour.

(08:56):
We stopped at a couple overlooksand took some pictures on the
way through as well. So.
Yeah, taking the time, Yeah. So we'll put up again.
We'll put them up on Instagram. So we stopped at Cremora Lake
Overlook, which looks W out of the park and then basically
right like 2 miles down the roadis Mormons River Overlook, which
looks over to the east. Then we it was like the perfect

(09:16):
time to the sun with the clouds so that the pictures from
Cremora Lake overlookers are super.
I mean, they're both, they're all really good, but the Cremora
Lake ones really have a nice like the lighting was kind of
perfect the way the light shown through the clouds.
So those are pretty cool. And so, yeah, we just stopped
there to take a quick overlook and then we stopped at, I think

(09:36):
it was the Dundo, like the roadside, because they have a
couple roadside. They're like little gift shops
and you can get like food and beverages and just odds and
ends. So it was the Dundo roadside.
We stopped it just to stretch our legs and use the bathroom.
And I think we got something to drink.
I think I got like a just a little coffee or something like
that just to keep us keep us moving till we got the trek up

(09:59):
to Big Meadows. And then, yeah, Big Meadow is, I
think, the only place you can get gas.
I think that, yeah. And within the park, I think
that's the only stop that has a gas station.
I'm sorry, the Loft Loft Mountain wayside is where we
went. I'm looking at the map now.
So the Loft Mountain wayside is where we'd stopped.

(10:20):
So yeah, by the time we got to the campground, I mean, it was
still light out. It was probably like 5:00-ish,
4/4 or 5:00-ish. It was definitely getting cooler
and it was kind of getting a little cloudier.
And we were able to check in. We reserved for the campground
on recreation.gov months ago. The campground was full

(10:41):
completely of people and it was a really good camping
experience. I think especially for our first
time camping international park.Everybody was very respectful,
like respected quiet hours seemed like everybody was like
following the rules. We didn't have any like loud
music party you. Know yeah, that was a super nice
experience. It was a a bit more crowded than

(11:01):
I was expecting but I get that there's only limited space to to
camp, but it wasn't like we weren't right on top of each
other. I mean, I, I'd say what we are
our little camping area right off where the spot was, was
probably, what would you say like 1000 square feet or
something, maybe a little bit more than that.
But it was a decent little size.And they have a picnic table.

(11:22):
So there's a bear box off the picnic table, little fire ring.
So we went up and got firewood. They had a little camp store
that has ice firewood like anything you would need for
hiking, like some general medicines and bug spray and just
odd odds and ends camp food. They had a couple, they had
showers and bathrooms and that kind of stuff.

(11:44):
So we got went and got some firewood.
And then we actually went back to the visitor center because I
was going to try and find something with sleeves because
I'm an idiot, and went into the the bird visitor center there at
Big Meadows. And of course, as it always goes
for me, because I'm a big faddy,they didn't have anything that
would fit me because 2X was as big as they had.

(12:05):
And so it looked like, you know,like that guy in a little coat
from Tommy Boy just wasn't goingto quite work for what I needed.
So we ended up just leaving there because they had, again,
they had food and drinks like head ciders and beers and stuff
like that. And so we ended up going back to
the campground and getting set up and yeah, didn't, I don't

(12:29):
think it took. So we tried we, we made a note
of when we started, but I don't think we looked when we got
done, no fully getting set up. So it.
Was pretty windy and the only thing that we hadn't tried to do
up to this point was to put the like rain layer on top of the
tent. So we did have some technical
difficulties figuring out which way to position that to make

(12:51):
sure it was on there correctly for the way that we had it set
up. Yeah, because I had a little bit
of a hard time when we first gotthere.
We went to get a fire started and you're not supposed to like
cut wood in the campground, but like in your little camp
section, if there's like kindling and stuff like that,
you can go ahead and grab that stuff just to help get a fire
started. Because I wasn't even thinking
about bringing like, fire starters.
Or we're not really allowed to bring anything outside so that

(13:14):
you don't introduce like a fungus or a parasite into the
park. Gotcha.
So you're really only supposed to use like what's there.
Gotcha. But that's like I I had I happen
to have the camp stove cylinders.
I had put some like craft paper,like packing paper in there to
keep them. So I was able to use that and
finally got a fire like going. And then once we have that, so

(13:35):
it wasn't just smoke anymore andit was actually starting to
white, we went ahead and got thetent set up and yeah, we put the
rain cover on and everything seemed fine.
And then I think it was ended upbeing on the wrong way like we
had, we ended up having to turn the rain cover like 90° because

(13:55):
once something in the one of thedoors didn't line up or
something like that. So we, but we got everything set
up the first way, went ahead, ate.
We weren't super hungry because we had eaten Five Guys burgers
for lunch. There was the Five Guys down in
Waynesboro. So we had had a late lunch at
probably 3:30-ish, I think it was.

(14:15):
Yeah, you later than that. We did that before we went to
Target and Walmart and stuff. But yeah, so we ate like we
weren't super hungry. So we just cooked some hot dogs
over the fire. You put some of those, the
gluten free pita wraps. We just wrapped them up with
some foil and put them on like the little cooking grate where
the fire ring was and just had like 2 hot dogs each had some

(14:36):
sour cream and cheddar OTS chipsand I think we had two of the
cupcakes didn't we? Spinks 2 of the cupcakes.
Yeah, we brought a can of camping like chili beans, baked
beans to have, but we weren't hungry enough to do all that
and. Yeah, we didn't want to get the
stove out and all that stuff going.

(14:57):
And then, yeah, we had trouble with like the rear lift gate on
the Outback. Like once we would set
everything up and everything would be fine with the gate up.
We set everything up and then I went to close it and everything
was fine. When I went to close it again or
when I went to open it again, like the tension that the tent
put down, the with the power lift gate sees resistance.

(15:19):
It like automatically reverses direct.
So it just kept closing. It wouldn't stay open.
And so we had to finagle with itin the dark, in the wind, and we
ended up switching the rain covered around and I had to make
some adjustments and just wasn'tquite working.
And then I realized because I remembered on the way in, I was
reading in the manual, the owner's manual for the car,

(15:42):
about ways you can adjust the height of the rear lift gate.
And so I was able to get the rear lift gate to just stop a
little bit shorter. And we were able to finally get
it to work by the end of the night.
Yeah, but work no problem after that.
Yeah, I can't remember that. Yeah, we set everything up.
I had my jackery set up, my CPAP, and yeah, I think it was
pretty early. It's probably like 10:30.
We finally ended up going to bedbecause we were maybe 100 yards

(16:04):
from where the like the little bathroom and they had like a
little dump site for recyclablesand trash dumpsters and all that
stuff. And we were only three or four
campsites down from that. So we ended up each taking turns
walking to the bathroom and thenwe got settled in for the
evening and. How'd that go for you?
It wasn't bad, like I said, but I thought usually if I have my C

(16:26):
pap on, I'm out pretty quickly. So I didn't think I was going to
have as big an issue. I was more worried about you
because you just in general don't sleep well unless it's in
your own bed. But you seem to do OK.
It's not that I didn't get any sleep.
I just never got into like a deep sleep.
I mean, I had my CPAP on for six, 6 1/2 hours because it'll

(16:47):
tell you how long you've had it on each day when you take it
off. And so I had it on the whole
time, but I just remember being.Restless, yeah.
And also it didn't help because with this way to sleep, the
camping setup was like our bed and mattress angled down.
And so I constantly would wake up and like my feet would be

(17:07):
pressed against the back of the lift gate.
So I'd have to like, push my feet down and slide myself back
up. Would you like to tell the dear
listeners how tall you are to besleeping in a vehicle?
Oh yeah, I'm 6-6, yeah. I'm 510, he's 6/6.
So we're tall people, we're large people.
But which? Yeah, so actually now that I'm
now that you mentioned that, I'mactually thinking about that.

(17:28):
So 6/6 is 78 inches and that is the height of our sleeping pad.
We got that that Big Agnes, the self and fading sleeping pad, it
is 78 inches tall and it just fits like when I cut the little
platform for the back of the car, it is exactly 78 inches
from basically the back of the front seats to the rear lift

(17:50):
gate. So I'm just just fitting in
there as it is without being angled downhill.
So I think we're going to have to, I'm probably going to have
to look into taking the seats out of the back, which it's we
really don't use. We use your car, the Forester
for everything like going to town and stuff like that.

(18:12):
So I don't overly need to have them.
I mean, I'm not going to do something that's permanent that
I can't undo. But I was looking into it and
taking the back seats out isn't a, a massive undertaking.
So I think we'll end up taking the back seats out and I'll just
have to build like a full actualplywood like false platform to
lay in the back. And that way it'll also get us
lower because there's not a ton of headroom.

(18:34):
The way it sits. We're only would say less than a
foot from like where our faces were to where the roof of the
car is. Yeah, yeah, about that.
I mean, it's not like you're in a car, but I was fine.
Yeah, yeah. No, like I said, there's more
room than you think there's going to be, but we're big
people in general. And we also have the inflatable

(18:55):
mattress, which is like 6 inches.
Thick, that's true. Yeah, We do add probably at
least four, if not like you said, 6 inches of extra height.
Then the sleeping pad, then us, and then we cracked our windows,
put like the reflective window covers and all the windows
except for the back door ones had those cracked but had like a

(19:16):
mesh screen kind of over it to keep any bugs out, but let some
airflow. You set up a fan.
But we didn't end up needing it.Yeah, it was.
A little too chilly for that. Yeah, I think that when we got
up, the high was like 35, so it's pretty chilly.
But no, I mean we each had blankets that my mom made us for
Christmas for that purpose, and then we had the sleeping bag on
top and I was pretty comfy. No, yeah, I never really got

(19:37):
overly cold. I just noticed I would be
because we didn't have the reflective things in the windows
next to us. Like I could just feel like you
losing the heat, like you would get that draft because you're
next to the window. But it wasn't unbearable like
when I pulled the sleeping bag up.
Like I certainly wasn't uncomfortable temperature wise.
It was more just the restlessness of not be able to

(19:58):
move around, just feeling a little cramped because you
figure, like I said, we sleep ona king size bed and that is
considerably smaller. Yeah.
I think the sheets I bought werelike.
Double. It's for a double which is or.
A full yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, that's it.
Full. Yeah, yeah, full.
It's a full, but yeah, it's justa double sleeping pad.

(20:18):
But it wasn't terrible. It was a good experience.
It was definitely, it went better than I thought it was
going to go. I'm really glad you were able to
sleep fairly well because I was really worried about that
because, you know, one night's not too terrible, one night you
can get away with. But out West, we're going to be
a couple nights in a row and also doing like super physical,
somewhat demanding hikes in between.

(20:41):
So you're going to need energy to do that.
And I didn't feel like, so we did a tough hike.
We'll talk about that here shortly.
The hike that we took and I don't think either of us like
our backs were hurting a little bit just because it's, you know,
obviously not ideal. You don't get a ton of support
sleeping on an air mattress and a little foam sleeping pad.
And we definitely forgot to stretch like our backs out.

(21:03):
Like I know we stretched our legs, but I didn't really
stretch my back up before we started going.
And we didn't think, we didn't think it through was our hike
was just up the whole time. But no, it's a good experience.
We, yeah, we slept through the night.
We kind of got up right and kindof as sun started coming up
because I remember the campground next to us, they were
cleaned up and gone by the time we went to go.

(21:24):
So I'd say they were probably going and doing some bigger
stuff, which I do want to mention that the AT the
Appalachian Trail runs pretty much the entire length of
Shenandoah. Like a good portion of the
Appalachian Trail runs right through the park.
So there's a lot of people that do AT stuff they can't there or

(21:45):
go hike there. Like I know a good portion of
the hike that we took was a partof the part of the AT.
But yeah, so we got up, got the Cam stove out, had some oatmeal,
had some, said you had some instant coffee, I had some tea.
So we tried. Out the camp.
Stove. Yeah, we tried out the camp
stove, which worked super well. Yeah.

(22:06):
Boiled the water pretty quickly.I was surprised at how quickly
it boiled everything and didn't have any trouble.
It was a little windy and yeah, no issues with that.
Got all that done, got everything cleaned up, broke
down the camp, packed everythingtogether.
And I think that didn't take tooterribly long either.
I'm trying to think of what it was.
It was what, 1030? I think almost exactly.

(22:27):
It was 10/31 when we started thetrail.
Yeah, yeah, we started the trailat 10:30, but we still had to
drive 20 some miles from the campground to the trailhead.
Yeah, yeah. Because we had a little bit of
ways to go to get to where that is, because Big Meadows, yeah,
Big Meadows is at about mile marker 5251 and it was 31.6 is

(22:51):
where is the mile marker that the Panorama parking lot is
from, which is where we go to goto Mary's Rock.
But yeah, so that was our hike. We did the Mary's Rock summit.
Why did we choose that one? Could you pick that one?
I was just looking for somethingthat was because that was really
the only thing we had planned that day.

(23:12):
So we knew we had a good bit of time.
I didn't want to do anything crazy because this is really
only our second or third kind ofdecent hike that we've taken of
the year. But it had a good bit of
elevation, but not a ton of distance because out here we we,
we're already up in the mountains.
So we don't get a ton of elevation change.

(23:33):
And if we weren't looking for it, we could find a bunch of it.
But around here like 6-7 hundredis usually about what you find
for, for the length that we wantto want to go.
So yeah, the Mary's Rock Summit is the 3.7 mile round trip,
12110 feet of elevation. So when you actually think about

(23:53):
it, that's just shy of quarter mile elevation gain in a two
mile hike out. And I think that's what we
didn't think of was it was sinceit was that out and back.
So half of that 3.7 mile round trip is only said 1.81 point 9
miles. So you're doing 1200 feet in 1.9

(24:15):
miles. And so it was just up the whole
time. Just straight up to get to the
summit and then of course, straight down to get back down,
which the trails that we kind offrequent around here are a
little bit more up and down, up and down as you go.
Where this was just kind of straight up, straight down,
which was good because we've, like you said, maybe 6-7 hundred

(24:37):
feets kind of what a normal trail might land us when we're
kind of training for the big hikes out West.
So this is definitely the most elevation that we've encountered
and it was in half the length ofwhat we're going to be doing for
a big hike out West, which wouldbe about four miles, about 1700
feet. So the 3/4 of the the elevation

(25:02):
gain, but in half the mileage. So a little bit more challenging
in that aspect. I think it took us an hour and a
half to get to the summit. And an hour to get down, they
call for the like the average trail time on the trailhead map
was two and three quarter hours.And I think we did it in like
just over three. Yeah.

(25:23):
So it's not like we were off. I mean, we took we took breaks,
but nothing crazy. There was there was those two,
the older Italian gentleman thatlike stopped and snacked in four
places and they bust out like paninis, like they were ready to
roll. Yeah, they were having a really
gourmet experience on the trail.Because we ran into them.
We actually ran into them twice when they were eating because we

(25:44):
stopped probably 2/3 of the way up before the switchbacks
started. We caught them.
And then as we were coming back down, they were up at the
backside of the summit just snacking away, just getting it
in. And yeah, because we were, I
don't want to say we were late, but they were definitely people,
like coming down when we got up there.
So you figure there were people that started probably right

(26:06):
around sunset or sun sunrise. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, It was a busy ish trail. We definitely saw more people
coming back down, so a lot of people heading up.
I'm in the later afternoon, but it was a good trail.
It was a good challenge for us, especially for me, I don't
really enjoy the going straight up portion of the trail, but it

(26:31):
was a good time. Do it again.
Yeah, I think it was up enough. Like I don't know that we'd want
to do any more grade than that. Like it was a steady uphill, but
it wasn't unmanageable. Right, right.
Like I think that's like when wego to Meadow Mountain, I think
that's like there's that one stretch where you're just, I
mean, up. Yeah, up, up.

(26:51):
Absolutely. And then what was the trail that
we did last year? Because we didn't stay anywhere
last year. We just went in, hiked and then
drove home. Yeah, and that we did Stony Man,
which is a really popular same thing.
It's right off the AT, but it's right down from Skyland, which

(27:11):
is one of the major, like visitor center campgrounds.
Has a Starbucks and a. Yes.
So Skyland is down a little waysfrom it's about halfway in
between Big Meadows, which is where we camped this time, and
the Panorama parking lot, which is where we stopped at.
So Skyland, which is again just a big like camping area, they

(27:35):
have a restaurant and place to sleep and that kind of stuff.
But Stony Man Overlook is one ofthe more popular just because
it's so easily accessible because it's only 1.6 miles to
do like the shortened version ofthe trail.
So it's 1.6 mile round trip, 340feet of elevation.
So it's nothing crazy and and you get a really nice view.

(27:58):
So it's only an hour. So it's a super popular spot.
I remember the parking lot beingfull because they have a big,
because I think we stopped therebefore.
That's right, because we after we can't, we stopped there on
the way to get to Panorama before we hiked.
Yeah, we went there and stopped and used the restroom and then
went in because they have like that little trail source.

(28:19):
We both got like some little snacks just to keep us going
because they have like actual cabins down there at Skyland.
There's like cabins and stuff that you can get around.
Yeah. So we stopped there again on the
way through, got some quick snacks and then went on to
Panorama. But yeah, Stoneyman was what we
did last year when we went down because we got right after that.

(28:40):
You get down and go out of the because there's basically
there's the the northern entrance at Front Royal, the
southern entrance, which is where we went this time, which
is Rockfish Gap, the South entrance.
And then there's two main cross cuts that run through.
There's the Swift Run Gap entrance at about mile marker 65

(29:01):
where Route 33 cuts through the park.
And then there is the Thornton Gap, which is basically where we
were at at Mary's Rock. Actually, in the pictures, you,
I specifically took pictures so you could see the Thornton Gap
entrance to the park that's right off of Route 211 in there

(29:22):
in Larae, which because it's like the park headquarters is at
the Thornton Gap entrance and stuff like that.
But yeah, it's, it's pretty easily accessible.
So Stony Man's really popular. So that was why we did that last
year. We knew it was going to be an
easy hike and it was kind of worth the quick stop off.
Yeah. Absolutely.

(29:42):
And then, yeah, so we went did Mary's Rock this time, which was
a set of challenging hike, but definitely worth it.
I think we were a little worse for where just the way down gets
you because I remember both of our feet were hurting because
like your toes get shoved to thefront of your shoes because I
remember we we totally forgot tostretch.
Like we got back to the car. I think you ran down to the

(30:03):
bathroom. I changed because at that point,
like it was cool in the morning when we started off on the trail
because I think you even had another layer on you shed pretty
quickly. And so by the time we came down,
it was warm. So I like took my son hoodie
off, changed out of my shoes because they were killing me.
Yeah, which we'll talk a little bit in next week's episode, a

(30:25):
little bit more about just like our hiking and what we usually
wear and what brands we like as plus size people.
But we generally both wear hiking boots, long pants and
long sleeve sun hoodie and then more layers if it's cooler.
But like on a hot summer day, that's usually our basic hiking
setup. Yeah, yeah, because I always

(30:46):
wear pants just because I don't want stuff getting down on my
shoes and ticks and all that kind of stuff.
It's nice to have extra like protection and coverage.
Yeah, especially from ticks in our area, they're pretty
prevalent. So just something that we're
mindful of. Yeah, but no.

(31:06):
So we we got back down to the car.
I said, remember, you went to the bathroom.
I changed real quick, took my shoes off and I think I went to
the bathroom and then you came down and like pick me up.
You parked right next to the bathroom and grabbed me.
And we totally didn't think about it.
We drove probably 1015 minutes down the road and you're like,
oh, we didn't stretch and I was like, we should probably do
that. Otherwise us sitting in the car

(31:27):
for four hours after we stretch is going to be a little rough.
So we stopped at the Hog Wallow Flats overlook and got a nice
stretch in, got some more pictures and that was kind of
our last little hurrah at the park before we left.
And then we headed out through Front Royal, stopped at the
Chipotle to get lunch and and then made the trek back home.

(31:51):
Yeah, it was a good, good littleWeekender.
No, it was. It was nice because Shenandoah's
only two hours from. Us depending on which entrance
you go to. Yeah.
So it's it's pretty accessible for us.
It's definitely the closest National Park for sure because
it's a little closer than I think New River Gorge is about 3
hours because we had talked about doing that.
But I don't know that we're going to get a chance to before

(32:11):
we go out West. But definitely we've been to,
we've been there a couple times and that's, I think that's on
our list to go camp out at some point in time because it's a
beautiful park. Also, the newest National Park,
the National Park System, is a newer gorge, I thought.
There's one's been named since then.
I know it was the newest when wewere there.
Oh gotcha. What's juju at?

(32:38):
Oops. Still.
New River Gorge, December 2020. OK, that's what I thought, but
was it was the the newest one? Yeah, you were correct.
But yeah, no. So Shenandoah, definitely go
back if you're, like I said, in the DC area or even really
anywhere in Virginia, Northern North Carolina, yeah, it's a

(33:01):
great park. They've got lots of amenities.
So if you're RV camping, I know they had a ton of like just tent
campsites. Yeah.
They had walk in tent campsites and then we got an RV accessible
site but it didn't have any likeelectric hookups or.
Anything. Yeah, because I know there were
the couple who were right there because like when you pull in to
where the campground is, they have like a little Ranger

(33:22):
station and you go to check in up there and they'll give you
like a map that they highlight the number that you have and
show you how to get there. And there were some RV's that
had like, you know, like the 30 amp RV hookup and water and all
that kind of stuff. And then they had like where we
were at where there's a parking spot you back into and then
there's like I said, a little gravel like picnic area that had

(33:45):
a picnic table and firing. And then the bear box was off
the back. And then they had like just tent
sites. So you would have a bunch of
cars all kind of crammed in a little parking lot.
And then they would just take their tents and go for a walk
right down the way and do that because there was what there's
probably at least 100, I think it's a. 221 on the.

(34:06):
Website. Gotcha.
So yeah, I mean there's plenty of room to to camp there and
then obviously there's other other spots you can camp at.
It's, I mean, like I said, they're shut up to be, you know,
accessible for people. But it was a good time.
Yeah, no, definitely. If you get a chance, go check
out Shenandoah National Park. Like I said at the beginning,
even if it's just for the drive.Yeah, just go drive and do the

(34:26):
overlooks and you know, take an afternoon because I think it's
probably like 2 1/2 hours If youdon't, if you don't stop or
anything or even with maybe it'sa bathroom break halfway through
and you'll see as you're drivingSkyland Skyline Drive, you are
like every overlook has cars pulled off through people like

(34:46):
stop there and hang out. There were a couple times we had
people with like had their camp chairs set up like on the wall
on the overlook. They're like reading a book or
having a picnic or just enjoyingthemselves.
So yeah, for sure check it out. Great stuff, love it.
Not a lot of self-service in thepark, so just be mindful of
that. There's usually Wi-Fi at the

(35:06):
bigger visitor centers. We have a Zolio satellite device
that we took and it worked very well.
Just kind of check in with our parents so they knew that we
hang on you by bear. Because I don't think I had any
service till I got back out in Front Royal because we had, we
had enough service to have like a podcast going in the car until

(35:27):
we got I think to probably too Big Meadow.
And then after that, remember, it really wasn't.
It was real patchy. Yeah, so just something to be
mindful of. And also, parts of Skyline Drive
will be closed during the winterwhen there's a lot of snow and
ice. Yeah, there were a couple spots
we could see where they had liketrees that would be like cut

(35:47):
down and moved and stuff like that.
Because you're like I said, you're literally just driving
the top of this ridgeline. It's pretty wild to see how they
like and, and again, if you havethe time, it's interesting to
look into the history of like how they put all this stuff in
and everything, because I remember that too.
I want to mention one of the pictures from when we did our
hike. There's a spot where you can see

(36:08):
where the Civilian Conservation Corps like built like a little
Rockwall to actually put a section of the trail in to keep
it flat. And so it's, it's interesting to
see how they put all that stuff together back in the day.
But yeah, like I said, super cool.
Just for the drive alone, if notanything else.
Yep. So that was our first camping
trip of the year. Hopefully we'll have at least

(36:32):
one or two more before we head out West.
You're going to reconfigure the back so it's a little bit more
comfortable for you, and we'll try that out again.
I think our next trip's planned,actually probably the week that
this airs, that first weekend inJune, we're going to try to go
down to Seneca. Rocks down to Seneca Rocks.
Yep. So hopefully by then we'll have
a better setup. We might take Duncan with us,

(36:54):
much to your chagrin, but he's an adventure boy, so he deserves
to go. And yeah, you want to wrap us
up. Yeah, so thanks for listening
this week to me and your millennials.
We hope you liked it and we hopeyou engage and go do all the
things on all the socials like comment, subscribe, notification
bells, all the all the things. You guys know how to do them

(37:16):
better than I do. All the things do them.
We appreciate it. It shows that you appreciate us
and what we're doing. And yeah, thank you guys.
Appreciate it. Yep, and for folks who stuck
around, we have two additional little Nuggets of information.
So wrapping up today's episode, what was your favorite piece of
media that you experienced this week?

(37:37):
I guess I'll have to go with 1923.
We started that what yesterday. Yeah, Yep.
Watch the first episode of the second prequel to Yellowstone.
We'd previously finished 1883, which I really liked.
I'm cautiously optimistic that Iwon't end up liking 1923, but
the first episode did not capture me in the same way that

(37:59):
the previous prequel did, so we'll see if we're able to build
upon that. Yeah, no, I said.
I think it's still beautifully done.
I think it's a great show. I think the the bar was set
really high with 1883, but stillgreat.
I said a wonderful cast. Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren.
Yeah, I think the potential's all there.
We'll see as we continue to go. So we're one episode in and I'm

(38:21):
I'm fairly well hooked, alright.We'll watch it, see what
happens. I think mine would be I've been
lost to several episodes of the You Can Sit With Us podcast.
It's part of the Try Guy universe and it's just a feel
good podcast. They just talk about all kinds
of topics, but it's just like aneasy listening.

(38:42):
You don't really have to pay a ton of attention to keep up with
it. It's a good just easy comfort
kind of show to listen to. So been doing that a good bit.
And what was the best thing you ate this week?
I'd have to say that that Chipotle bowl after we did our
hike, yeah, because we really didn't have a ton of food.

(39:03):
Like I said, we had oatmeal. When we after we camped, we had
oatmeal and I think a cupcake, yeah, maybe and some coffee and
then, yeah, trail snacks. I think I got some mixed nuts
and some Reese's Pieces and you got some jerky.
And that was really all we had. And then we did because what did
you say? Your Fitbit. 17,000 steps but I
was using my hiking poles so I don't know if that.

(39:27):
Yeah, I know there's the way that it measures your steps is
weird. Yeah.
So I don't know, but I mean either.
Way to be what we expected it tobe, but 17,000 steps just seemed
like a a lot to me so I'm not sure.
Well, that and like you said too, since we were going uphill
the whole time and downhill, like you're, you're taking
shorter steps, like your stridesa lot shorter because I know

(39:50):
like that's part of the issue wehave just hiking in general.
Like I've, I'm tall and have a long natural stride.
So like one step for me covers alot more ground than one step
for you. So when you're going uphill,
it's all a lot shorter steps. And so I think that also makes a
difference. But no, I mean, it was, it was a
workout for sure. But yeah, we we stopped at that

(40:10):
Chipotle and I housed a whole burrito bowl with a large bag of
chips and it hit the spa. Yes, there's something about the
the meal you eat after a challenging hike that is very.
Extra tasting, satiating. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
I think I would have to go with the five guys that we got before

(40:31):
we entered the park simply because there's very few places
that as a celiac I can get safe gluten free fries that aren't
made in the same like a shared fryer with gluten containing
foods. So that was always a treat for
me to get Five Guys burger, no bun, get a burger bowl or they

(40:52):
have lettuce wrap, but I'd rather eat it with a fork and
then the fries. Yeah, I like Five Guys, the the
classic hand cut fries. Got to do them, in my opinion.
Got to do them with vinegar. They remind me of the boardwalk
fries we used to get all the time.
Yeah, they're the best. I love nice natural cut fries.
Nothing crazy. A little bit of salt.
Like I said, I load mine up withvinegar and yeah, Five Guys

(41:14):
never disappoints. Nope, they've got good allergy
protocol. I've never gotten sick from
eating there so. Yeah, I've never had trouble.
Food's always good. I like it.
All right, so next week we will be talking about episode 9
titled Hiking Ain't easy. Just get a little bit more of a
down a rundown on the type of clothes we like, what we wear,

(41:40):
how we prepare, what brands thatwe enjoy wearing because it is a
challenge sometimes to find hiking clothes that are
comfortable and meet the criteria of whatever it is
you're looking for. How we stay hydrated and just
what works and what we maybe have tried that didn't work out
so well. Just to give some folks who

(42:02):
might be thinking about dipping their toe into the outdoors
couple options to jump off from.Yeah.
All right. Bye.

(42:31):
Excellent.