Virginia, Part 2

So our first full day in Virginia was taken up with a visit to Schuyler, VA. For those who are not fans, this is the actual home town of Earl Hamner...the real John-Boy Walton. The family lived in Schuyler. This is where most of the stories originated. We toured the Walton Mountain Museum, visiting the different rooms of the Schuyler School that have been meticulously decorated to exhibit the different rooms in the Walton house. Also in this museum was a video room, the script room, a wall dedicated to other works of Earl Hamner (very insightful), and a war remembrance room. Seeing as watching the WALTON'S has become a family tradition, even the boys enjoyed the museum. Over the years we have come to realize that our oldest son could be "John-Boy" and our middle son could most definitely be "Jim-Bob." Our youngest son, is as curious, insightful and loving as the character of "Elizabeth."

After leaving the museum, we ordered homemade hamburgers from what was the store on which "Ike's Store" was based. Taking these burgers back to the property of the museum, we had a lovely picnic. We then drove by the original house, the original church and the ruins of an old soapstone mill...where there is a breathtaking waterfall created by an old dam. We decided to take an unknown road and found ourselves following a river. Eventually, we met back up with the highway and headed towards Charlottesville. We did take one more side trip...to Carter's Mountain. This is a mountain-top orchard that produces apples, peaches, grapes, etc. There is a store and snake bar at the top of the mountain, along with a breath-taking view.

Rain prevailed on our second full day in Virginia. I ventured to the grocery store and then met up with my husband and the boys for lunch at a real "Tastee Freez." Of course, we took pictures depicting a certain famous 80's song while we were there. Then, taking the SkyLine Drive, we went north to the Grand Caverns. These caverns are the oldest show caverns in the US, having been discovered in 1804 by a local trapper. To think that these caverns were first explored with only candles and lanterns is mind-blowing! The cave holds many different types of cavernous formations, as well as, wall carvings dating back to pre-Civil War eras. The caverns are in a regional park that sports a swimming pool, a mini-golf course, trails, enclosures, fire pits and fishing on the South River, an off-shoot of the Shenandoah River. We spent some time with the river...discovering many exciting things. Our travels then took us back to SkyLine Drive. Our youngest, seeing the clouds roll in, thought we had traveled into the sky and could not believe that there were actually TREES in the sky. We saw a lot of wildlife on our drive and had a lovely time. At one point, we parked and then hiked part of the Appalachian Trail....where our youngest discovered a snail crossing our path. The observations of my youngest son and the immense differences in perspective between this snail and the before mentioned mountains were quite intriguing.