On the trail of the lonesome pine

We had a lovely day today. We didn't manage to get anything booked for this weekend, so we decided to do day trips instead...and today we went to Skyline Drive which is in the Shenandoah National Park and follows the ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains for 105 miles south from Front Royal. We didn't do the entire route...as we stopped at every vista point to exclaim of the utterly gorgeous views it would have taken us about a week to do the whole thing! We did about a third, and marvelled at the utter tranquility, fantastic views and cool, fresh air...

There was ample wildlife as well...eagles soaring majestically overhead...the most enormous butterflies flitting about the flowering bushes....and bambi! We had just pulled out of a parking spot after admiring a breathtaking vista and noticed that the car in front had stopped in the road, and after a few seconds of wondering why he had stopped I noticed a fawn and her mummy munching on leaves just by the side of the road. By the time we had got the camera out they had begun to move away, so all we got was a rather blurry shot of bambi and bambi's mums butt!!

We stopped at a rather quaint rest stop for lunch and saw the cutest thing (and I didn't have my camera with me so I'll have to describe it). There was a lot of bikers in the park, roaring about on their Harleys, and some had pulled into the same rest stop. One had the most cute little chihuahua...all dressed up with a little biker helmet complete with goggles, and a little jumper and bandana!!! It seems that bikers rather favour "handbag dogs" as there was a biker with a Yorkshire terrier down on King Street last night!