Monday, May 23, 2016

Oh, Shenandoah

As it turns out, I'm not great at holding still.

Mr. Rogers got an early start on his first day of riding (Monday morning) and I headed back to the motel to pack up, reorganize, and make my way northeast. We had covered a lot of miles in three days ... but now I had a mission that required a couple hundred extra.

The evening before, I had perused the brochure stand in the lobby and tripped over something of particular interest. The Green Valley Book Fair is just south of Harrisonburg, Virginia, and is only open five times a year for a few weeks each time. It is essentially an enormous overstock sale, and ... well.



As some of you may remember, I have a book store ... thing. It was the original purpose behind my trip to Portland and I try to work at least one interesting store into each trip. I was in luck: the book fair had opened just a couple days earlier and was within shooting distance of Mr. Rogers' take-off spot.

This time, I had to set both a spending limit and a time limit before I stepped inside. And in thirty-five minutes I was back outside, only slightly over that spending limit.

Eesh.

Hey, I'm pretty happy I managed to get away with books I'd already wanted, with only a couple of exceptions.

Over a quick lunch, I tracked the mileage required to drive Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park, right down the spine of the Appalachians -- and then set out to do just that.

Really, I can't say much more. It was beautiful.




... It was also a lot of fun. The kind of drive that was best done without a passenger, really.

Alas, I didn't have as much time as I could have liked, and soon I was on my way to pick up Mr. Rogers -- to be followed by a day of "rest" to take care of some general business (like getting Sophie's oil changed) and catch up mid-trip.

Virginia. Another state to exceed my expectations.

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