TheBanyanTree: VA & NC pics

[Sachet]

http://eshare.hpphoto.com/start.asp?JobID=265c6b79-5eaa-4697-bd4e-76b3a2cc2a8d


My husband, Jim, and I went to Virginia this past weekend. The goal was 
to hike through the New River Trail State Park near Hillsville. We now 
know that if a park has the word river in it, that means flat land. 
Granted we were up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but the area around the 
park had no cliffs or mountainous trails. Ok, so laid back was our motto 
du jour and we were not to be deterred from hiking, no matter what. We 
looked at our trusty map and decided to go explore the Mount Rogers 
National Recreation Area. [http://americasroof.com/va.shtml] We took a 
Virginia By-way in order to enjoy all the beautiful scenery, which ended 
up being a wonderful decision. It was gorgeous...in every direction we 
looked we were surrounded by mountains. We came across Raven Cliff trail 
and went hiking around the river. We found an interesting and unique 
structure called Raven's Cliff Furnace. It looked like something out of 
SG1. I was in awe of how much human labor & ingenuity it took to build. 
I Googled and still can't find out what it was used for and when. Jim 
surmised that it was from the Civil War, which makes sense.

After Raven's Cliff we drove through the wilderness area in search of 
more trails and found them at Mt. Jefferson National Forest. So we got out
and hiked some more, enjoying the leaves carpeting the ground. It was 
quickly getting dark, so on the way back to our hotel we decided to
check out Grayson Highlands State Park 
[http://www.dcr.state.va.us/parks/graysonh.htm] We decided to make it 
the focus of our day on
Monday.

We got up early and were greatly impressed by the full breakfast the 
hotel provided. (Comfort Inn in Hillsville A++++) Then we stopped by
Walmart to find some blaze orange fabric to tie on our arms and legs 
since it is hunting season. No hunting in a state park, but we wanted to
be safe. It was very reassuring to see all the NO HUNTING signs posted 
all the way up the mountain. Imagine our surprise and dismay to find a
sign at the entrance to the park stating that a "Managed Hunt" was under 
way and for hikers to wear blaze orange. Ok, we figured since they
were supposed to be in the picnic area side of the mountain and that was 
blocked off, that we would just hike elsewhere. So we went to the
pinnacle and found a hunter sitting up at the top with his rifle in 
hand. We both decided that if we saw 3 hunters traipsing around and we saw
about 7 trucks, that meant several hunters were unaccounted for and how 
much did we REALLY want to hike knowing that they had guns and
some of them might be idjits with guns. We figured there wasn't enough 
blaze orange on the planet to make us feel safe that day.
I was sorely disappointed, but it was still early, so we looked at the 
map, saw that we were 4 miles from the NC state line and that Mt. Jefferson
State Park was only about 20 minutes away.

We were hungry again by the time we got there and all along the trip we 
had chosen to eat at local places to capture the local ambiance of
each town. I found a restaurant called the Dairy Place and I sputtered 
in amazement because there in the parking lot was a big ole pick-up
truck with a 4-wheeler in the back and draped over it was a huge deer. 
Made us really glad that we had decided not to hike at Grayson, since
that's where they probably came from. We figured if the hunters were 
eating there it had to have good food and that was true.

The owner was such a sweet guy and we asked him about hiking at Mt. 
Jefferson. He said it was mainly a nature area with
only a few trails and proceeded to tell us to get onto the Blue Ridge 
Parkway and hike trails off of it. We drove for about 15 minutes (all 
the time,
during this whole trip we had relied on the compass on the rear view 
mirror of the Vue and had (for the first time) managed never to get lost),
found the Blue Ridge Parkway and meandered along enjoying the view. 
After awhile we came to Doughton Park
[http://www.byways.org/browse/byways/12832/places/12068/] and were happy 
to discover several trails to chose from for the day. Learning
from past mistakes we decided not to start at the very top and hike 
down, because then you are left with a leg-killer of a hike back up the 
mountain. <g>
Instead, we chose a trail halfway up and hiked to the top of one of the 
mountains, sat on some cliffs, took bunches of pictures of the mountains
surrounding us as far as we could see and then made another stop at the 
Bringer Cabin. We left the Blue Ridge Parkway at Rt 21, drove down
around Stone Mountain (where I wanted to hike and watch the sunset, but 
Jim was too tired, so we are going back there in 2 weeks) and
meandered our way back home on country roads with the beautiful scenery 
of the changing leaves.

Jim was proud of me that I was so spontaneous and I was appreciative of 
him being so willing to try this and that, with no plan in mind. We
had a lovely time doing what we wanted, when we wanted, all on our own.

....Sachet