Shenandoah River SP, Bentonville VA

Fri., Oct. 15, 2021 thru Mon., Oct. 18, 2021

This morning we saw Stacie & Johnny as they were packing up and said our temporary goodbyes. We’ll see them again in a few short weeks at their home. 

Today we traveled 178 miles in a southwesterly direction to land at Shenandoah River State Park in Bentonville, VA. A pretty drive through farmland and dotted with silos. It was 80 degrees and humid when we arrived! This is our first time at this beautiful state park. A bit of a trip getting in here with steep downward winding roads. But all good except for the tire pressure monitor thingy going off because of tires getting hot with all the breaking. This marks a milestone for Gary & I. Our 100th different campground that we’ve been in with our tiny home! 

Only hiccup? No cell service whatsoever. We found that out when we tried to back-in. We usually use walkie talkies. Gary backs and I direct. You can imagine how well he takes direction? But I realized during the drive today that one of the walkie talkies wasn’t charged up. Oops. No problem, we can use our cell phones. Wrong. After punching Gary’s number 4x on my cell and him not picking up, I realized there’s no signal. This is why we still carry walkie talkies with us. Ok, hand signals it is. It worked fine.  

There are 31 spacious sites here and what appear to be some very nice hiking trails. We’re looking forward to exploring the park. But, not today. It was so hot outside that we ended up sitting inside with Cheryl & Joe and visiting until dinner time. 

A main reason for us being here is to visit Luray Caverns, which the four of us decided to do on Saturday since rain was expected. We figured we might as well be in the caverns. They are billed as the “largest and most popular caverns in the East.” Beyond awesome! Gary & I had been fortunate to visit Mammoth Caves in Kentucky a few years back, but in our eyes Luray superseded that. Just gorgeous! We got an education in stalactites (formed from the ceiling), stalagmites (formed from the ground), and columns when both meet in the middle. Typically the formations are one of three colors depending on the different types of minerals collected in the water: white is calcium carbonate in its pure form, reddish brown formations are iron oxide, and grayish black are manganese oxide. Any green color is algae growing due to moisture near a light source. 

Truly amazing. One section was called “Dream Lake”. It’s a perfect mirror reflection of the stalactites growing from the ceiling. Dream Lake is the largest body of water in the caverns covering 2,500 sq. ft. and at its deepest it is between 18 and 20 inches. It was incredible. 

Luray is also home to The Great Stalacpipe Organ, the largest musical instrument in the world. It uses the stalactites as tones over a 3 1/2 acre area. Wow. We heard a sample of it playing. A little hard to hear with people talking and crying babies. 🙂

They have a Wishing Well where you can throw money into a pond. At the end of each year it’s collected and given to charity. Over $1 million has been collected. 

So glad we got to see this today. It’s been on our list for awhile and did not disappoint! It was truly special! 

Also as part of Luray Caverns, they have a car museum on the property and a vintage toy museum. We toured both. Twas a full day! 

When we got back, Joe & I walked down to the Shenandoah River to catch sunset and take photos. That night we all enjoyed a campfire. 

Sunday we visited the Smithsonian’s Air & Space Museum in Chantilly, VA near Dulles Airport. We are going to be in Washington D.C. in a few days and Gary had wanted to see the Air & Space Museum in D.C. But he had read that it’s being renovated and many of the exhibits are closed and the reviews were that it’s not worth visiting at this time. So we decided to visit this alternate “annex” location. It covers two hangers and we probably did about as much walking as we wanted to.  Even here a few of the exhibits were covered over because of repair work being done on the roof of one of the hangers. We saw WWII and Vietnam era planes, Kittyhawk, Space Shuttle Discovery, and a Blue Angels plane, which was cool having seen the Thunderbirds practicing this summer (different branch but similar). We saw The Spirit of Texas, the first around-the-world-helicopter flight which took 29 days in 1982. And we saw the first FedEx plane to handle cargo. Looked so small! We saw Enola Gay, and we even saw satellites. I never new what a satellite actually looked like before. They also had a choice of a few 3-D movie options but by then it was getting late and adult beverages awaited. 

When we came back we all chilled for a while then Gary & I headed over to Cheryl & Joe’s for dinner (delicious!) and played Uno Flip. Stacie & Johnny’s parting gift to us was to give us their second deck of cards for Uno Flip. Thanks guys we’re enjoying it!

On Monday we did a 3-mile hike at Shenandoah River State Park with Cheryl. Joe was off taking care of a truck issue. A great hike. The right amount of effort for the right amount of payoff and a beautiful day! Although Gary was complaining a bit… “I thought this was supposed to be flat!” It was rated as moderate. I didn’t think he needed to know that. 🙂

Monday afternoon we chilled for a bit and then played a marathon session of Mexican Train with Cheryl & Joe outside at their site on a picnic table. This time we played by their rules, which we actually enjoyed quite a bit. We played for 4 hours. Started at 3 and ended at 7 PM. We started in daylight and warmth and ended with blankets and flashlights. Crazy! Long around 6pm, Joe was whining about being hungry. We gave him a pretzel and said be quiet. We have to finish this. He was out-voted 3 to 1. The game continued. Gary was the big winner.

Tomorrow we head a little north to Cherry Hill Park in College Park, MD to spend 5 days exploring Washington D.C. We love Washington D.C.