Virginia - Front Royal

10/7 Today we left the Hershey CG and headed toward VA. We actually left PA, went thru Maryland (all of about 38 miles), then into VA, then out of VA into WVA, then out of WVA and into VA. Sound confusing??
Front Royal, VA. is located in the Shenandoah Valley of North Western Virginia between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Massanutten Mountains. The Shenandoah Valley is part of a 1,200 mile long valley extending from southern Canada to Alabama.
Front Royal got its name back in colonial days.  A giant oak, the "royal" tree of England stood in the public square.  There, on muster days, the local militia drilled, composed of raw recruits slow to learn the military commands.  On one occasion, the sorely tired drill sergeant became so exasperated by the clumsy efforts of his troops and their failure to follow his command that he hit upon a phrase all could understand and shouted:  "Front the Royal Oak."  It was repeated many times and eventually ended up as "Front Royal."
Our CG is about 10 miles southwest of Front Royal. The scenery is fantastic.

This is a picture of the Blue Ridge Mountains from our CG. The scenery is fantastic.

On Friday we drove into Front Royal where the Shenandoah National Park begins.
They have a 105 mile scenic drive called 'Skyline Drive," from one end to the other (35 MPH speed limit). We started at Front Royal and were pleasantly surprised when we drove up to the park entrance. We noticed that the rate was $13 per car or $10 for seniors. When I asked the ranger for a senior pass, he asked if we had the Golden Age Pass, (which we remembered that we did), we found our card and got in for FREE!
After leaving the ranger station, the road immediately started winding uphill. I think we got to about 2500 feet before we sort of leveled off and started enjoying the scenery. They had many turn offs where you could view the countryside below. We took so many pictures because it was all so neat, as you will see below:

Eventually we started climbing again to about 3300 feet and stayed at that level for a long way.

Even encountered a tunnel up here:

  Pictures cannot begin to capture the real beauty of the trip.  The entire trip is about 105 miles; we got off after 65 miles and 4 hours later. We came down the mountainside into the valley and then made our way back to Front Royal via Hiway 340 and back to the CG.  The weather was great - temperature in Front Royal was 80+ while up in the mountains it was in the 70's.  A great day for sightseeing!!