Road Trip Day 2: Skyline Drive to Blue R

We started our day driving peacefully through Shenandoah National Park on Skyline Drive. We bought our National Park Annual Pass at the entrance. Hopefully we’ll make good use of this over the next year. It will be even get us into the national parks in Hawaii if we manage to make it there next year.

Allan was loving all the overlooks to get a view of the valleys and mountains. Freya seemed like she enjoyed jumping in and out the car with Allan. The drive was about 100 miles.

We stopped for a short hike up a mountain, then bought some lunch shortly afterwards before beginning the Blue Ridge Parkway.

However, neither of us really looked into the parkway, and were a bit shocked to learn it was over 400 miles long... The Skyline Drive took us over half a day (with all Allan’s stops). This didn't bode well for our 3-day road trip plan.

We ended up trying to make it to the halfway point that night. After a frantic dash to a Domino’s just off the parkway, we made our intended sunset destination to eat our pizza atop a rock at the viewpoint. It was pretty peaceful after the (my) disappointment of the trip taking longer than expected.

The downside to driving the parkway in the dark: the deer come out. We had to drive pretty slowly and my neck was in agony by the end driving like a grandma, eyes peeled for any deer. Allan blamed Hannah’s grubby windscreens for shouting “deer” for shadows! So, I ended up trying to avoid actual deers and imaginary deers.

We pulled off the parkway in Fancy Gap into the sketchiest motel yet. Allan had accidentally booked a smoking room (yes, these still exist). I parked the car and began to sort Freya while Allan sorted the room.

As soon as he opened the door and smelled the stale smoke, he walked back out and demanded another room. However, the receptionist didn’t seem like he could be bothered. He fiddled around with some keys then led Allan to the hat appeared to be, the non-smoking side of the motel.

The door didn’t seem to open on the first (non-smoking) room, so he led us to the next. Pro: the room didn’t smell like ass. Con: only one lightbulb (of four) and half the sockets were working. Allan took the floor lamp from the far corner and laid it on its side as close as he could get to the bathroom. Combined with our phone flashlights, we could just about see the bathtub to have a shower.

During the night Allan was awoken by the sound of our new neighbours arriving in an old pick-up truck, their subsequent domestic, a bang, a smash… then silence. Like I said, the sketchiest motel yet.

Allan’s deal of the day: National Parks Annual Pass for $80 - a bargain when the cost of one park can be as much as $35 per vehicle and still the same price as 2014 and 2016.Read more