This is a retrospective blog of my seven-week exploration of Virginia along with a journey through the Shenandoah National Park and on down the Blue Ridge Parkway to Cherokee, North Carolina. 'Retrospective' means simply that it wasn't written during the trip, but is being written after-the-fact, a little over a year later. Baaswell Sheep accompanied me and is writing the blog in the way he's done my later blogs, since he's so good with the color commentary. Unfortunately, since I didn't plan for this blog back when I was doing the trip, my pictures are limited to the major attractions, but I'll try to make those galleries a little larger than I do in my later blogs.
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We're enjoying the Peaks of Otter lodge for the next couple of days, which consists of three lodge buildings plus a dining room / front desk building, all of which face a huge, gorgeous lake (Abbot Lake). The three "peaks" are (in ascending order of height) Harkening Hill, Sharp Top Mountain (seen in the large picture to the right), and Flat Top Mountain (seen in the first two pictures below). And don't ask about the "otter" part – no one knows how it got that name, though there's a number of theories.
Blue Ridge Parkway: Johnson Farm and Harkening Hill Summit - Milepost 85.6
My companion decided to tackle the lowest of the three peaks: Harkening Hill. The trail for it is a loop going up one way and coming down another, but bringing you back to the Blue Ridge Parkway just a short easily walkable distance from where you start. But first, theres's a pioneer farm about halfway up: Johnson Farm. As is so often the case, we happened to be there when there were no interpreters around, so all we could do was look at the items sitting outside and peek in the windows of the old farmhouse. But, we had an interesting encounter with a deer who really wanted a crabapple that was in the grass near my companion's feet. He was trying to film her and she just kept coming closer and closer. Unfortunately, he was so surprised by the behavior and got quickly focused on backing off, so he didn't actually see what was happening or even film her picking up the apple, but he could hear the crunching of it in the audio playback and figured out what had happened!.
Just with the Shenandoah National Park, deer are very prevalent along the Blue Ridge Parkway in the summer, and when we got back down the mountain and were crossing the Parkway to get back to the lodge, we encountered a pair of deer grazing on the grass and got some nice pictures. Do take note that the adult deer in the first four pictures is a male (note the small antlers). It's pretty unusual to come across a male deer with a fawn: the vast majority of the time when you see an adult and a fawn, it's the mother with her young, and you'll see that a lot up in the mountains in summertime.
Please note that all restaurant and product names are used simply for referential purposes and links provided as a courtesy. Reviews are the sole opinions of the reviewer: no restaurant has paid to be listed here, and no restaurant is being explicitly endorsed. In other words, go out there, try them all, and form your own opinions!
We're enjoying the Peaks of Otter lodge for the next couple of days, which consists of three lodge buildings plus a dining room / front desk building, all of which face a huge, gorgeous lake (Abbot Lake). The three "peaks" are (in ascending order of height) Harkening Hill, Sharp Top Mountain (seen in the large picture to the right), and Flat Top Mountain (seen in the first two pictures below). And don't ask about the "otter" part – no one knows how it got that name, though there's a number of theories.
