DC reporting in, #17: Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah NP
Two weeks ago – see how we are slooowly catching up? – I rented a car and spent a weekend hiking in Shenandoah National Park (along paths that divert from its Skyline Drive), just about two hours away from DC. The weather was varied – sunny and muggy and overcast and throughout rather hazy with a torrential downpour or three interspersed, and the mix of it all made for a beautiful long weekend and a great variety of photos and experiences. I saw quite a variety of wildlife, including a black bear! My first bear encounter in the wilderness – but as the bear was ‘only’ sitting in a tree and looking down on us hikers somewhat skeptically, it wasn’t scary so much as tinged with respectfullness of the distance one should give a wild animal such as a bear.
The blue ridge mountains are indeed blue when covered in haze and seen at twilight, but for the most part they were hazy but still wildly green and verdant, so that they were really green ridge mountains, rather than blue. Which, however, did not prevent me from having both “Country Roads” and “The Wide Missouri” as earworms (as the word Shenandoah pops up in both…).
The Shenandoah NP is beautiful, and from time to time reminded me quite vividly of driving through the Palatinate back in southern Germany, as the combination of roads-trees-hills felt very similar to me (albeit there are no bears in the Palatinate, and altogether more small hamlets and coniferous trees). It was good to get out into the countryside and just to walk and walk and walk and carry my camera around :-) – it made me recall just how easy it is to get out into the countryside from Flensburg, and how often I do it there, for a weekend day hike, and how much I’ve been a city girl these last months. It was good to see trees upon trees upon trees upon trees for a while.
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