Front Royal (4/28/2014)

This is the last picture from our Shenandoah trip.  As you can see the river was running nicely.  On Saturday there was a competition (an adventure race and it had a biking, running and kayaking leg in nature), and it included a leg of kayaking on the river.  As you can see, the river was swollen from the rain we had that Friday; not that the leg these guys had to do was very dangerous.  It was a long race, and even at 10 pm when looking out of our cabin window you were able to see headlights (the ones you strap to your head) dancing up and down through the woods.  That day we had a shot walk, followed by a great burger at Spelunkers in Front Royal before we went home.  Our dogs had to wait in the car under the cherry blossoms; hoping we would bring them a burger.

 

 

Front Royal (4/27/2014)

I am running a little behind in my postings, which is partially due to work related issues and computer problems.  We bought a new laptop with Windows 8.1.  Having used a smart phone for quite some time now, it is not as alien as some predicted; moreover, it does has a regular window’s screen if you want to use that instead.  My problem was that my Norton 360 started having a conflict with some of the programs and there went my email, my store and my internet explorer access.  Somehow it did not affect my Chrome and my other programs, but it was difficult to figure out what the culprit was.  Now hopefully there will be a solution soon, so I can reinstall my Norton, which I've used for more than 10 years.

Back to our trip to Shenandoah State Park; we stayed there from Friday evening through Monday morning.  On Sunday we did another two great hikes and we visited our very quickly becoming favorite winery.  I am posting three photographs of my favorite spring blooms here.  The bluebell trail made good on its name.  Virginia bluebells were in bloom everywhere.  We also saw a lot of pawpaws in bloom on that trail (no photo from those blooms).  Along another trail the redbuds and dogwoods were in full glory as well.

Now about the winery; we visited Chester Gap Cellars, just outside Front Royal.  This is a nice winery tucked out of the way on a steep slope.  I am sure the slope helps with the quality of the wine.  Some of the other wineries are on flat country, and honestly they probably get too much moisture here in Virginia.  Grapes from flat areas most likely produce a lot of sugars; and wines from those grapes loose character by just producing loads of alcohol and very little tannin and other flavorful compounds.  We liked almost every wine at Chester Gap, and may be because of the ambiance of the place, but I am sure, also the way the grapes are grown.  Last year we bought a 2006 merlot, which was absolutely wonderful.  The 2007 merlot we bought this year is a bit thinner, but still very good.

Shenandoah State Park (4/26/2014)

Here is another picture from the park.  Kind of that post card picture.  It was taken at the lookout point, overlooking the river.  Spring was late this year, thanks to that cold winter we have been experiencing.  But unlike last year when we were there the same weekend, the dogwoods and redbuds were blooming everywhere.  The bluebell trail was amazing, but that will be the subject of the pictures I'll put up for the 27th.  In addition to hiking in the morning, we drove up north to Harpers Ferry.  Of course on the way north we had to stop by a winery, and so we stopped at Breaux Vineyards.
Breaux was somewhat of a let-down.  This is an industrialized winery and it was absolutely insane.  The tasting staff was impersonal and they went either just through the motions or openly complained to you about what was going on around them.  For example, the first thing we were told by the tasting staff was how the owner had made his millions in real estate on the Outer Banks, like we really cared.  We were there for the wine.  Moreover there was no interest in us, like where we were from etc.  It was loud and noisy.  Moreover, the wine was not great, not bad, but very overpriced.  We left there with a bad taste in our mouths (literally and figuratively).
On the other hand, Harpers Ferry was great as ever.  It is nice to walk in such an historic place, where so many things happened.  I decided to add a picture of the family buying ice-cream at the and of our visit to this place.
Driving back to the park we ended the day with dinner at a great little restaurant in Front Royal.  Element is a cute small restaurant with good food and wonderful wine.  I will definitely add my review of this restaurant on yelp one of these days.

Shenandoah State Park (4/25/2014)

We had a wonderful weekend at Shenandoah State Park the last weekend of April.  In my books this comes close to being the best park in the Virginia State Park System.  It is a great place for some hiking, biking, kayaking and even some wine tasting at the nearby wineries (which are really good and in a future post, I may write a review of the ones we have visited in this area).  Friday started out a rainy, but after the rains were over we had a great walk on a nearby trail.