I couldn’t get a photo of the black bear so here’s Julie and I at a waterfall near Shenandoah National Park

We were enjoying the fresh green canopy of trees above us and the slow winding road when we rounded a corner and suddenly a large black bear lumbered across the road in front of us, paused for a moment, then galloped up the slope and stopped to quizzically look back at us.  Perhaps he was admiring Tramp or just wanted to say hello – we’ll never know as traffic coming up behind us meant we had to move on before he wandered into the trees.  Such is life in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and its famed Skyline Drive that follows the high ridge of this majestic mountain range.

That night in camp we were unexpectedly joined by a young through-walker of the Appalachian Trail (AT) who we had chatted to earlier that day and had mentioned to him we’d be camping in this campsite.  Ricky was only 20 years old and a long way away from his home in Ohio but making great progress on his journey up the AT.  Anyone who walks the 2,100 mile Appalachian Trail has accomplished something that must life-changing in many ways but amazingly Ricky was doing it with only one good leg.  He had a prosthetic leg and foot which gave him a pronounced limp and an extra complication as he negotiated the rough and uneven track of the trail.

We spent a couple hours walking down to Rose River Falls, a beautiful track through the green forests

Ricky, or Captain Caveman as he was known on the trail, joined us for dinner and a few beers after pitching his tent at the back of our site.  He was a delight to talk to that night as he answered all our questions and provided us with a fascinating look into walking the AT.  But Ricky was unique in more ways than just his prosthetic leg – he is walking the trail alone without any maps or track notes or even a stove.  He eats only cold food that he can buy after hitching down to nearby towns – he doesn’t rely on any support or mail packages.  Amazing stuff.

Ricky, or Captain Caveman on the trail, was an amazing young man

That night we were also joined by a French Canadian couple, Deva and Adenal, who we had seen a few times over the last week.  We had a great night over a few glasses of wine swapping stories between all of us and hope to catch up with them when we get to Quebec.

We left the national park and headed down its steep eastern side to take up an offer from a couple we had met back on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina.  Eric and Deborah had been our neighbours at the campsite that night and the four of us immediately hit it off.  They live in the trendy university town of Charlottesville Virginia and invited us to visit them at their remote hideaway piece of land at the base of the Shenandoah National Park.  We couldn’t resist their charm and generosity, finding ourselves at the end of an obscure track in a fold of the national park amongst the beautiful green forests and a farm house that was almost 100 years old.

Eric and Deborah’s special hideaway place at the base of the mountains backing onto the national park

Eric and Deborah were of the same vintage, frame of mind, environmental perspective and political persuasion as Julie and I, making us ideal buddies over beer, wine and pasta.  We explored the various buildings of their fascinating mountain paradise and also walked a nearby trail into the national park, ending in a refreshing swim at the base of a beautiful waterfall.

Julie, myself, Deborah and Eric after a beautiful walk up to a hidden waterfall

We couldn’t resist a cool dip at the base of a beautiful waterfall

After sharing untold travel and family stories, and marvelling at the similarities of our lives we said goodbye to Eric and Deborah with sincere commitments to catch up somewhere else sometime in the future.  Hopefully we can return the favour by hosting them at our property in Australia someday.

Deborah, Eric and Julie at a local brew house – great stuff

We stopped at an Amish store in a small town in the Virginian mountains and Julie went wild

But Julie and I were on a mission to move northward into the New England states and eventually into Canada’s Maritime Provinces.  To do that we had to detour around the mass of humanity that makes up Washington DC, New York, Philadelphia and Boston – planning to save them for another trip – and the journey began with a quick visit across the corner of West Virginia.

The historic town of Harper’s Ferry in the corner of West Virginia

Nestled in the mountains at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac River was the historic town of Harpers Ferry and we had a fascinating time exploring its historic buildings, walking across its 120 year old bridge into Maryland and getting a grip on the role this town played in the economic advances of the region in the 18^th century and the fight for the emancipation of the slaves in the Civil War.

We walked across this old rail bridge at Harper’s Ferry into Maryland

But unlike the huge states out west, or even the medium sized states of the south, the states of New England are small and their borders are frequently tangled by the turn of a river or the twist of a mountain ridge.  Such is the case where Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania meet and by following our nose northward we ended up visiting three new states within a couple of hours. It went something like this: we drove from Virginia into West Virginia, we walked across the bridge into Maryland, we drove back into Virginia for about a mile, then entered Maryland and less than 30 miles later were in Pennsylvania.  As you do.

I sent Julie into this shop for a gun and she came out with tomatoes

The countryside of rural Virginia was spectacular, especially with the long uncut grasses in the fields

We ended the day at Gettysburg, the famous site for one of the largest battles in the Civil War and the turning point for the Union’s eventual victory.  On the fields around this small rural town over 50,000 men were killed, injured or went missing, an extraordinary loss over three days in July 1863.  As we drove around the battlefields we stopped to stand in fields where 15,000 men fell in a single afternoon, an almost inconceivable number given that much of the fighting was at close range and hand-to-hand.  If ever evidence was needed for the waste of war, this was it. Very sobering stuff.

Farmers’ fields today but a bloody battlefield in the Civil War

Hard to imagine the death and suffering in these fields during the war but it is all well recorded and remembered now

Abraham Lincoln and I shooting the breeze after his famous Gettysburg Address

But we were on a mission to move north where we knew the weather would be colder but the mountains, rivers and people who make us feel welcome.