Shenandoah National Forest

The morning is brillant again. Take a walk and discover an area that's been staged for a photo shoot depicting new RV sites being built on property. They looked great...fully landscaped and complete with outdoor kitchens and furnishings. We look forward to coming back and checking it out.

We're taking the long way home via Skyline Drive through the Shenandoah National Forest. We encountered long lines of the leaf peepers at the entrance gate, but it moved rather quickly and the park rangers were in great form walking up and down the line with pleasant chatter.

The leaves were still not at full peak because of the lack of rain and warm weather, but it was still a treat. We stop at an overlook and fortunately begin talking to some bikers who warn us about a tunnel about 70 miles into the park. We're way too tall. Fortunately there are numerous exit points and we'll pick one to get out before that encounter.

Try to find a nice place to stop and have a picnic....not many choices. Think a lot of the nicer places are further ahead than we are going.

Keswick Country Club

Fortunately the day dawns beautiful, we have a 1 p.m. tee time. We head over about 11 to hit balls and have lunch. We sit on the Palmer Room terrace overlooking the course and have a terrific meal. Rick has an Asian Chicken Salad and I, an extraordinary tomato tart. We linger a bit, then head to the tee.

This is a private course so you need to make arrangements through your club or stay at the Keswick Hall. Staying at the Inn is a treat...do it if you can. Our favorite room is #1. Said to be the Laura Ashley room, where she stayed while decorating the inn. (It was formerly owned by her and her husband. Now it's an Orient Express Hotel.)

The course is pretty quiet since it's the end of October. This is a good resort course. Challenging enough, but pretty wide open to keep the pace of play up. Again we don't have a very stellar day, but the views are wonderful and the weather is glorious.

We head back to Gordonsville and decide to have dinner at the hotel. Very, very casual and unexpectedly, very crowded. The food is better than we had expected and the wait staff is charming.

After dinner we wander around the hotel and discover a huge game room, pools and a gym. Kids would enjoy it.

Shopping in Charlottesville

We spend the morning kind of lolling around. Splendid day. The view from our site is of a wonderful old manor house set on hundreds of rolling acres of vibrant foliage.

Set out again for Charlottesville and find a fabulous series of shops called XXXXXXXXXXX. There are a number of wonderful food purveyors and we pick up some unusual spices and fusion sauces I hadn't seen before. But I know in my heart, we won't be using them on this trip. With a car and in a rather happening kind of town, I know we will be eating out!

Rick drops me off at the Second Yard and takes off on some made-up errands. I spend the next 3 hours analyzing the merits of thousands of glorious fabrics. Make my selections, Rick picks me up and we head over to the pedestrian mall. It's a pleasant October evening so we sit outside and have drinks and a wonderful crab, gorgonzola nacho platter at XXXXXXX . We then go in to check out the restaurant and spy billard tables. For some inexplicable reason, we spent the next 2 hours playing pool, sharing a burger and having a very good time!

Charlottesville, VA

We'd been home over a month and we wanted to take Gigantor out for another spin. We also wanted to go back to Charottesville and taking Tor seemed a good idea. We had stayed at Keswick Hall outside of town last May and got rained out of our round of golf and we wanted to use our rain check. There's also the the most fabulous discount designer fabric store in downtown Charlottesville and I wanted to reupholster our living room sofas that had gotten beyond shabby chic. And it's October and even though we have had a disarmingly warm fall, the foliage should be great.

We had reserved a spot at an RV and hotel resort called Shenandoah Crossing in Gordonsville. It's about a 20 minute drive into Charlottesville from there, so we reserved a car at Enterprise to get us back and forth to town.

We had stayed at another BlueGreen Resort in the Wisconsin Dells which was okay, but when we arrived at this one, we liked it much better even on first glance. It's centered around an equestrian facility, has a hotel, restaurant, golf course, cabins, townhouses, a small RV facility nestled in the woods and what looks like thousands of acres of forests and trails.

We get settled and head into town to The Second Yard on Market Street near the pedestrian mall. I'm in heaven...Rick sits and reads a book. I'm only doing reconnaissance this afternoon...tomorrow I will come back for the big shop.

Charlottesville, VA

Planning a trip to Charlottesville. Here's what we'll be doing.

Washington D.C. – Charlottesville, VA
Itinerary

Oct. 18 – Travel to Gordonsville – 95 miles

Shenandoah Crossing Resort
174 Horseshoe Circle
Gordonsvillle, VA
540-832-9400
http://www.bluegreenonline.com/

Oct. 21 – D.C. via Skyline Drive/Shenandoah National Park
www.nps.gov/shen/