Luray, Virginia

If you thought you were going to get a break from me, then you thought wrong. Here I am...still in Internet Land...still yammering away with my tippy-typing. Geez. I'm here in Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park Camp-Resort in Luray, Virginia. And if you think I'm kidding with that name, don't. There's an actual statue of Yogi Bear at the entrance to the park. If I'd been thinking, I'd have taken a picture...and I will, just to prove a point. But that will have to wait until later today. So here's what happened.

It was a relatively short drive from the RV park in Lanexa, VA, to Shanendoah National Park. We drove through some beautiful country in Northern Virginia, and the autumn leaves are in full swing here now. We passed by some lovely farms with interesting barns, but I only thought to take a picture of one.

As we climbed the hill that would take us to the park entrance, we drove into fog.

By the time we reached the park entrance, the fog was so dense that we missed it and drove right by. As we crested the hill...oh my goodness! The fog cleared and the autumn leaves were just gorgeous!

We had to drive about five miles before we found a place wide enough to turn ourselves around, and then headed back up the hill and into the fog again, making sure we didn't miss the entrance this time.

And this turned into a bit of a fiasco. The map will provide a helpful demonstration of our problem.

We drove in on US Hwy 211, marked with a blue arrow in the map above. We were headed to the Big Meadows campground, marked with a red arrow toward the bottom. But do you see what I've circled in red there near the entrance? It's the dreaded "TUN." That's "tunnel" to you. I'd noticed the tunnel before we left our previous destination, and checked my app for anything less than 13 feet. There were a few tunnels, but not along our route. I checked again, just to be sure, and found nothing to indicate that the clearance was too low for us. Nevertheless, when we entered the park, a big warning sign told us the maximum clearance was 12' 8". Oy boy. Too low for us.

Since then, I've read an article claiming the clearance is 13' 7" but I checked with my friend Google this morning and read this article about Mary's Rock Tunnel on Skyline Drive. Google agrees with the sign in the park, but the tunnel is kind of interesting anyway. I encourage you to click on that link and read about how and when it was built.

So...the only way to reach the campground would have been to head back down the hill and take another route south...either that, or find a campground in the nearby town of Luray. Yogi Bear, here we come. And here we are! We have electricity and internet, so how bad can it be? And don't think I won't take a picture of Yogi Bear. You just wait and see.

After all that excitement, what could I do but bake a Blue-Cherry Pie for Two. You might remember that I canned some cherry pie filling last summer...only I didn't have enough cherries, and so I supplemented with blueberries, and the Blue-Cherry moniker was born. There's no good place to roll out a homemade pie crust in the RV, so I just used Pillsbury...we're camping, right? Besides...Pillsbury is good. They come two crusts to a box, but I figured I could get away with using just one crust for my little 6-inch pie. (That leaves an extra crust for another pie!)

I figured out that my largest round Tupperware lid cuts the perfect size circle for the bottom crust. Then I used the top of a medicine bottle to cut out circles from the scraps to make the top crust. It's a pie crust only a quilter can appreciate. We do know our way around some scraps, don't we?

While I was baking the pie, the sun started shining on the hillside beside the park. Look how pretty it is out there.

Later on in the evening, I did some more stitching on Thelma...she's getting pretty darned close to finished.

I'm going to leave her buttons unstitched because I'll use tiny buttons or hot fix nailheads there. Besides, if I have to stitch one more tiny circle, I'll probably go crazy...or maybe it's already too late. But now, only the hair and hat are left, so I'll probably get her finished up today.

There's rain in the forecast, but so far nothing. If the weather doesn't discourage us, we'll drive back up to the park and drive north on Skyline Drive to do some sight-seeing. If not, we'll just sit here stubbornly until the weather improves, even if it means staying an extra few days. We've been on something of a schedule up to this point, worrying about cold winter weather setting in. We're probably far enough south that we don't have to worry quite as much, but we'll continue to keep an eye on the forecast just the same.