We woke up to another wet, foggy morning at Fairystone State Park, home to the mysterious "fairy stones", or staurolite. The stone, prevalent in the region, contains the St. Andrew's or Roman cross.
The Parkway is lined with mountain laurel trees which are very similar to rhododendrons. Unfortunately they had not flowered yet, due to the elevation of the road which rarely dips below 3,000 feet. The most common flowering trees that we encountered were these purple jacaaranda and the orange azalea.
We got off the Parkway in order to have lunch at a Greek restaurant in Lexington, VA, home to Virginia Military Academy and Washington & Lee University. We both had gyros, very tasty, but not particularly photo worthy. However these roses were.
Leaving Lexington, we skipped the last 30 miles of the Parkway and took I-81 to Staunton, VA, a charming town that we had visited in the 1970's.
Gardening is big in Staunton.
Our destination for the the day was Gettysburg, where we had a reservation at Pine Grove Furnace State Park. We approached Gettysburg by a different route which took us through this single lane covered bridge.
We returned to "Food 101" for dinner. We were worried that the restaurant would be crowded since Gettysburg College's graduation was also that day, but we lucked out, and got a table without having to wait. Our meal was delicious. Joni ordered a club sandwich that included:
turkey, applewood smoked bacon, avocado, chipotle mayo, lettuce and tomato on a wheat berry
bread. I chose the same dish that I had a month ago, baked shrimp pappardelle with a cream sauce that included: artichokes, spring onion, lemon, capers, edamame, cilantro, and fontina cream. Clearly the
chef likes to cook!
We arrived at our campsite at 7:55 pm, just as it was getting really. When we were last
here on Monday, April 18, there were only a handful of campsites occupied, whereas tonight,
a month later and a Saturday night, the campground was full. What a difference a month
makes!