Today, we all (yes, all) slept in until 8! We missed the lodge's breakfast, which was fine, because we wanted to hike, anyway. Dad found these trails on the Appalachain Trail that he thought we could do to get a good view of the park!
As we were pulling into the lot to begin the hike, we noticed some park rangers filing out into the trails with all kinds of heavy gear. We deduced based on nearby signage that they were spraying for and killing an invasive plant known as Japanese Stiltgrass. Just a little peek at conservation at work!
We did the harder and less rewarding hike first, which was almost entirely uphill although only 0.4 miles in length. The view point I made it to was nice, but nothing quite as special as the other hike.
&esmp;At this point, Dad and Gideon wanted to continue that trail to the summit and second outlook for the first trail. I personally was not into replaying last night, so I declined and headed back to the parking lot with Mom. And by with I suppose I mean ahead of, although we did wait in the car for a while together. On the way down, we found all kinds of areas of brush dyed bright blue! Herbicides at work! Unfortunately, they were also at work staining Mom's shirt.
When the boys returned, we began our second easier and far more rewarding hike. This one was longer, about 0.7 miles each way, but it was far flatter and therefore infinitely more enjoyable. And the view from the overlook was that much better too. We all sat down for a while here before heading on our merry way back. Gideon decided to race me to the car and ran off. Obviously, he won. Mom told us we'd know if she was ok because she would blow her fog horn like a cruise liner… about 5 minutes up the trail I heard a quite belabored cry. Mom was ok!
Once we all made it to the car, we headed into the nearest city north of Shenandoah for lunch and a CVS for a tide stick for Mom's shirt. For lunch we went to Brick House Bar and Grill. The staff's T-shirts promoted pride, which was lovely. There were claw games, too (which we played, duh) and the food was pretty great, too! The mac and cheese tasted just like one of our favorites, Cracker Barrel.
We stopped at the park sign on the way back inside for our sign picture, then at a gift shop for Gideon's token. They only came in a four pack, so he has four to choose from now! I also got an excellent poster. Gideon drove us most of the rest of the way to the lodge, too! His turns were excellent and smooth and he did a great job keeping off the edge of the road, breaking and moving in and out of traffic! He's really getting the hang of it! He was even rolling windows up and down as he drove!
We decided to relax and rest up a bit before dinner, which we were having later to avoid crowds and leave room from our big lunch. To no one's surprise, we went up, put our name on the list and went to go purchase more merchanidise from the gift shop near us. Whoops! Dinner was even better today than yesterday, certainly worth the wait. Mom got brussel sprouts she loved and Dad even found something he can tolerate lima beans in!
Then it was back to the rooms for bed, we were leaving early the next day!