Breezed out of town, leaving Washington ... right before Memorial Day (143Cong.Rec.S5220)

I guess we've fully incorporated ourselves back into U.S. culture because for Memorial Day weekend, we did what apparently every other American did: We got out of town. In hopes of avoiding traffic, we waited until Saturday morning to take off. Even though we didn't book a campsite, we weren't worried about our delayed start because we figured something was bound to be open in one of the campgrounds within George Washington National Forest. After all, about a month ago, we had few neighbors in a free campground in West Virginia. 

To make a long story short, we were wrong. North River Campground in the Todd Lake Recreation Area was overrun for a mountain-biking event, and Brandywine Recreation Area was booked, probably because of its tempting lake beach on a warm and sunny weekend. We didn't find a spot until our third try, albeit surprisingly at another free campground (I guess people think you get what you pay for). Camp Run Campground was remote and primitive, but it was a perfectly suitable jumping-off point for touring the Virginia-West Virginia border area.

With our mislaid confidence, we took a leisurely route to the campground. We got Sage out of the car for a short walk in front of Edgar Allan Poe's dorm room at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville (left). I had a few more lingering worries about having to sleep in a Walmart parking lot than TJ, so I pushed us forward pretty promptly. (Luckily, on our way back to the DC area on Monday, we were able to actually linger in the college town of Harrisonburg, where we joined summer-session students from James Madison University for breakfast at The Artful Dodger.) We managed to pitch our tent and cook a campfire dinner before dark Saturday night, so I was relieved and rested when we started our explorations on Sunday. We enjoyed the nice weather with a stroll beside Jackson River in Hidden Valley Recreation Area in Monongahela National Forest (right).

Hidden Valley is just west of Hot Springs, which is home to The Homestead, a resort I could probably never afford (nor want to). But I would be willing to shell out the cash for Jefferson Pools, named after the third U.S. president, who visited the 18th-century springs during a three-week stay in Warm Springs in 1818 (left). Unfortunately, I didn't bring a bathing suit, and although you can take a dip in your birthday suit, it was a little too hot to leave Sage in the car while we soaked. Unique octagonal structures still cover the natural sulfur springs, which were originally discovered in the 1600s before becoming a spa destination (right).

On our loop back to our campground, we headed to Cass Scenic Railroad State Park, where you can ride on steam locomotives once used to transport lumber to the mill in Cass. We were too late to take a train trip, but we stopped in the old company store and cruised by the company houses, which can be rented for vacations. Many cyclists take advantage of the cottages at the beginning or end (or both) of a trip on the 78-mile Greenbrier River Trail.

After breakfast in Harrisonburg on Monday, we took the long route home through Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. We only drove a fraction of the road, but there are so many roadside scenic overlooks that even our 30-mile portion (from Swift Run Gap to Thornton Gap) took a good couple of hours (left). Plus, I had to spend some extra time tempting TJ to come back to the car and not head off into the great beyond on the Appalachian National Scenic Trail (right).

Unlike our campsite hunt on Saturday, we had some good luck on Monday because we managed to see Massanutten Lodge, which is open only a couple of hours a day on the weekends. The mountainside vacation home was built on land purchased in 1910 by Addie Nairn Hunter, who then a year later married the seller, George Pollock, owner and operator the adjacent Skyland resort. Pollock nee Hunter was an environmentalist of her day, once buying 100 hemlocks to prevent them from being logged, and remained an advocate throughout her life; she helped lobby for the area to become a national park.