road trip USA

one week on - shenandoah national park

Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you...

The Skyline Drive is 105 miles of beautiful scenic drive down the spine of the mountain range in the romantically named Shenandoah National Park, and is one of the key ambitions in my itinery. I guess I should appreciate the irony of coming to America to drive what is acknowledged by many to be one of the world's most scenic routes, only to spend over 3 hours covering 50 miles in some of the densest fog I've ever experienced - much like driving in a blizzard! It was raining when I entered the park on Sunday morning... for most of the next 2 days, all that was visible was the bottom half of the nearest trees.

Fortunately the lodge at Big Meadows is beautiful. Gorgeous old wood with a strong scent of resinous pine. Predictably it was very quiet - presumeably numbers of potential visitors had stayed away - so there were plenty of staff fussing over their few guests. This blog page was going to be about Shenandoah - just the name is enough to fire the imagination - but as I can't talk about the scenery, I'll talk about the people instead.

The room at Big Meadows Lodge

Zanelie the waitress (from South Africa) is a real sweetie. I was finally told that my accent is cute. Result! Was also invited to visit her in South Africa, which I am sure will delight Mrs Tripper. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure she was invited...) Zanelie had only just transferred in from Montana, where she'd seen snow for the first time in her life. Yikes - what an intro - 30 below and 6 feet of the stuff. Kadek the Barman from Bali was on duty for the first night. By coincidence, he'd also just moved from Montana. He served the wrong beer, unfortunately to a guy called Bill who turned out to be a brewery QA exec! Bill was gracious about the error. A lot of people seem to sterotype Americans as loud-mouthed and brash, but almost invariably I've seen courtesy well above British standards.

John at the bar - a hunter/hiker from Arizona - recommended the draught Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (a micro brew) over the AmberBock from the giant Anheuser Busch. He too had been disappointed by being unable to see anything all day. He told me that if I'm inexperienced, don't venture out in the fog, as I could easily slip off the rocks - or stumble into a bear.

In addition to being reassured as to the cuteness of my British accent, my day was rescued by the discovery of live music in the bar after dinner. Mike the Guitarist plays folk and a bit of country and western with real flair. Teaching history is his day job, and he observed wearily that increasingly he has to compete with i-pods and "cells" for the attention of his 17 year olds. I couldn't work out (from my seat at the bar at some distance) how he played his earlier period songs with "open string" chords (ie little or no l-h fingering of the frets) and in the time it took me to move up close, he had somehow reverted to orthodox fingering. Afterwards, he told me that tuning to C major was widely used in early American folk music, and he'd quickly retuned whilst I was moving. He also had some whizzy technology that cycled his voice into a harmony backing of a major 3rd, or 5th, and I'd spent some time trying to spot his backing vocalist. (Doh!) I know, that's enough of this musical anoraking, or you'll be bored to tears... and if I'm not very careful - By the time I make Oklahoma, you'll be sleepin'.

On rising the next morning, It's raining again (and has been all night). My waitress was Lynda, also from S Africa (and Montana) and the front-desk clerk was Bruno from Brazil (also his first week, and also just in from Montana, but independent of the others). Unbelievable - is anyone left up there? It's not as if Montana can afford to lose all these bodies - 3 times the size of England, it has a population below 1 million, and its State Capital is the size of Wokingham.

So this is why they are called the Smokey Mountains...

No point in hanging around, as the weather looked set, so headed off into the fog and rain, and meandered cautiously out of the park at about 20mph.

As the road fell, the fog thinned, but the rain intensified, and it just rained harder - and harder - and harder. Real aquaplaning stuff, and there was a nasty smash at one point just behind me at the lights. I try to look around historic Richmond, but the storm intensifies, so head on to the motel at Williamsburg.

Tornado warnings being broadcast every 15 mins on the radio ("If necessary, take shelter in your tub..."). 200 miles and 36 hours later it is STILL raining like the clappers, and there has been a major tornado incident in the neighbouring county of Suffolk, with a hospital partially demolished, hundreds of houses crushed, and a car lot turned into a scrap yard. The meteorologist said it was the largest she's ever seen. We've been told to stay inside.

So, I'm typing this in the safety of my bath... and it's still raining.

Next morning, the extent of the devastation is fully revealed. A full state of emergency has been declared: the tornado touched down in 3 areas, including Richmond (behind me) and Suffolk (ahead of me). 200+ injured, and the Met people say it's the biggest tornado they've experienced in Virginia.

Good to see Fire and Rescue hard at work, Davey!

p.s. we are now told there were 9 tornados yesterday.

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