Day 3

Left the campground around 8:15 AM, & stopped in Gettysburg for coffee and a sweet roll. Updated my blog while at the coffee shop, and hit the highway around 10:00 AM.  The drive through Maryland, West Virginia, and into Virginia was beautiful; lots of rolling hills, farms, and flowering trees.   First stop was the northern entrance to Shenandoah National Park, 107 miles to the south.  We stayed on Skyline Drive for 64 miles, stopping occasionally for the incredible panoramic views of the Shenandoah River valley.  Unfortunately due to the altitude, the vibrant spring colors had not yet arrived along the route, so photo ops weren't great and our animal sightings were minimal, one squirrel, one pheasant, and no deer.  

Leaving the national park we headed for the town of Lexington, Virginia, home to both Virginia Military Academy and Washington & Lee University.  VMI’s buildings were very reminiscent of The Citadel in Charleston, very fortress like and not very appealing.  However, the W & Lee campus was beautiful, very similar to UVA, so we took a brief walk through that campus.  Robert E. Lee  spent his post Civil War career at the university, which is the 7^tholdest in the U.S. 

Leaving the campus we walked into town for dinner at the Southern Inn.  This restaurant was right out of John Grisham novel,  a couple of lawyers were sitting at the bar across from our table, as we dined on some of the best fried chicken I have ever tasted.  My White Cosmo was pretty good too.

The drive from Lexington to our campground for the night was a short one, only 20 minutes. I had booked a reservation at the Cave Mountain Lake Recreation Area which is operated by the National Forest Service.  The campsite was alongside a creek, very picturesque, but it was deep into the Blue Ridge Mountains, so we had no cell service and were not able to listen to the Red Sox-Yankees game.