Well, for the umpteen billionth time, it rained on the last night of a camping trip. It has rained on almost every camping trip we ever took, and I'd say at least half of those times it has rained on the last night--or even the last morning--requiring us to pack up a) in the rain and/or b) wet stuff. This time, it POURED down rain sometime after midnight, so everything was soaked--at least on the outside. We had a lot of stuff carefully packed up under the picnic table with a big tarp over the table, but rain ran down a hill and soaked everything under the table from the bottom up. Yuck. At least we were dry--the blankets, pillows, and suitcases were dry. It also was not raining while we were packing, so we were thankful for small favors. We had packed up and were out of the campground by 9 a.m., which was just as well, since we had big plans to hit two Virginia state parks on the way home.

This roundabout route was in aid of one of my geocaching adventures: there is a challenge cache (in a park in northern Virginia) which I have already found, and which requires me to collect at least one cache in every state park before I can legitimately log the find of that original challenge cache . I've found caches in 16 of the 36 parks so far; today's adventures would add two more.

Our first stop was Grayson Highlands State Park, which is rather out of the way, but which turns out to be a REALLY nice park. It comprises some beautiful land with spectacular views, and it is meticulously maintained. The park is up in the mountains--adjacent to Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area. Mt. Rogers is the highest peak in Virginia, I believe. This location meant that we were up high enough for cool temperatures and a nice breeze--none of the nasty humidity that we woke up to. We spent a very pleasant half-hour or so there, admiring the views and the butterfly garden, before heading out to park number 2.

We stopped en route for lunch in Galax, using Yelp to choose a place, which turned out to be very good. The lunch was so big, furthermore, that neither of us ended up wanting dinner AND there were leftovers. Yelp has never let us down yet!

Park #2 was Fairy Stone State Park, and the experience was not quite so positive . For one thing, there was no phone service to speak of, which meant that I couldn't use my geocaching app to locate a cache. The one I had scoped out in advance turned out not to be within the park boundary, and so probably would not have been a legitimate find for the challenge. A park ranger, when I explained the problem, gave me a brochure with a list of caches, but when, after reading it, I asked a (different) ranger if she could make a recommendation as to which one I should go after without having to hike several miles, she perused the brochure and came up with "Well, it doesn't say how far you have to walk."  Duh. I asked her if the park manager, who has to approve placement of all the caches, was there, and she said yes, and went off to consult. Apparently he doesn't consort with the peons who come visit the park. The message evidently got garbled, because the advice she came back with didn't make much sense, and it ended with the recommendation that I use my geocaching device to check. Riiiiiiiggghhhhht .

Fortunately, I managed about that time to pick up enough phone signal to make the app work, and so we located a cache that was only about a quarter of a mile off.    There was a trail, but it began by heading off in exactly the wrong direction. Worried that it would end up being a lengthy hike to the cache that way, I decided (foolishly, as it turned out), to take the straight path, which was only about 1500 feet. Unfortunately, as so often happens in geocaching, the direct route went straight through seriously difficult terrain, and we ended up clambering up about 100' of extremely steep and rather slippery hillside at the end to reach the site of the cache. Tim probably deserves sainthood for putting up with the whole thing.

We took the path back.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, and we arrived home about 7:15 to spread all the wet stuff out on the lawn where it could either dry out or get wet in the predicted rainstorm overnight. If the latter, not really a problem. (As it turned out, no rain at night or Tuesday, so everything is now dry and returned to storage.)

We drove about 860 miles, picked up a drive-in, a ballpark, and two state parks. The weather sucked, the ballgame sucked, and the movie sucked, but we had a good time anyway. Classic! Next trip is our anniversary trip in two weeks--we're headed the other way for that one: to Ohio. Stay tuned!