I'm feeling pressure to make tracks because yesterday I logged less than 150 miles (but I had such a good time in Winchester, I didn't want to leave!).  I was out of the hostel and down to Route 7 by 7 a.m. and headed towards Front Royal and Skyline Drive.  A happy wooden sign was the Park Services' "Welcome to Shenandoah National Park." 

Every year when I pay my taxes, I tell myself that all my money is going to the Park Service and this country's best gift to itself, our national parks.  I love them. 

It was mostly sunny all day and I drove almost all day feeling the pressure to make miles between whatever rain may be ahead.  I want to get to Marilu's in Arkansas and see what events she has planned for me.  A day of rain and I'm blown off course BIG TIME.  So now when the sun is out, I am out in the roadster and we are HAULIN'.....

America has two things on the list of 7 Natural Wonders of the World.  (They told me that in Virginia, I hope it is true.)  I've seen Niagra.  The other is Natural Bridge--bought by Thomas Jefferson for $2.40 and has the distinction of having George Washington's initials carved in it.  A little colonial graffiti.  Well, it is pretty overwhelming--215 feet up with a 90 foot span, it is a natural arch over a trout stream.  "It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime to be felt beyond what they are here," wrote Jefferson.  Native Monacans considered it sacred and called it "The Bridge of God."  I call it pretty #$@%&*!ing amazing. 

The bridge is privately owned and that was a bit of a surprise, seems like the US of A should own it.  But this ownership accounts for the wax museum, the huge gift shop, the massive hotel building about the size of Congress, the ice cream place, the evening "Drama of Creation" program and all the rest of what some people like to call "commercialism".  Which doesn't bother me a bit.

I pressed on to the next hostel.  Drove too many miles.  Got way too tired but found the hostel in the woods on the Blue Ridge Parkway.   I had 19 beds to myself.  Woke up and left--the temperature was 34 degrees in the shade.  Now I'm in North Carolina and in a nice warm library thawing out.