Drive 3.5 hours to Luray Caverns, VA. A national historic landmark, and the most impressive cave I've seen.
Go a little further to New Market, have dinner at the Southern Kitchen, visit the local battlefield, continue 1.5 hours to Harper's Ferry National Historic Park. This was incredibly gorgeous, as Thomas Jefferson had commented in 1783. Stopped by because of its Civil War significance, but mostly enjoyed the view. Especially the bald eagle that flew overhead as I crossed the bridge on the Shenandoah... words can't describe how happy I felt. Merely a half-hour to Antietam, the bloodiest day of the Civil War, which happens to fall on my wedding anniversary, September 17th. It moved me to stand in the Bloody Lane and cross Burnside's Bridge. The day was so pretty, and the birds so happy... you could hardly believe what had happened just over 150 years prior. Then drive 4 hours home... and it was so worth it! I listened to the beginning of Jeff Shaara's Civil War Battlefields, and the majority of Jane Austin's Mansfield Park as I went. All those rolling hills of farmland and pastures... and perfect sunshine the whole day.
Getting off the I-95 at Fredericksburg,VA, continuing west on SR-3 through Chancellorsville, by the edge of the Wilderness and Salem Church, through the tiny towns of Culpeper and Sperryville, across the Skyline Drive of the Shenandoah National Park, through Luray, and New Market, VA, on I-81 to West Virginia, through Charles Town (didn't know it at the time, but that's where John Brown met his end) to Harper's Ferry. Then getting a little lost through Boonsboro, and Funkstown, MD, then back to Antietam National Battlefield on the Sharpsburg Pike. Leaving Antietam, back through Keedysville, Boonsboro, and Myersville as I labored to find I-70. Passed numerous towns and cities (only stopping for gas once I was well past the outskirts of Washington) on I-270 to I-495, back to I-95 and I-295 outside Richmond to I-64 and home.
Left at 5:20am and returned at 11:00pm.
Whew!
Jw
1 comment:
Oh, I loved Luray Caverns! I figure you could just spend a week traveling I-81 and seeing all the attractions along it.
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