late fall in shenandoah

Fall is the most fleeting of seasons. Blink - and poof! - the leaves are gone and it's winter. I've found that if we have a busy weekend, or bad weather, we often miss out on pumpkins, apples, and crunchy leaves all together. We seem to have this problem every year, but this year was even worse - between a full schedule of art markets and the threat of a hurricane, I felt like we didn't get to experience fall at all.

In the past, we've managed to squeeze in fall trips to an orchard and The Apple House. We've gotten lost in a corn maze and shot a pumpkin cannon. We've carved jack-o-lanterns. We've taken hikes and photographed the foliage. And here it was the first week of November 2012, and we'd done none of that so far. So just like last year, we took a day to play hooky and drive out to the mountains with the pups.

The plan was to check out Shenandoah River State Park - but after an hour and a half in the car with hot dog breath on our necks, we arrived to find that the park was closed due to "deer management" hunting. :(

So we resorted to Plan B, stopped for sandwiches to squash our cranky moods and then proceeded on to Skyline Drive (and we even saw a black bear on the drive in). We were at the very north end of Shenandoah National Park, and weren't familiar with the trails there, so we ended up hiking along a fire road. (Fire roads are usually wide and flat and so they're perfect trails for dogs and gimps like me!) It was beautiful and quiet, the trail was covered with crunchy leaves, and we even stumbled upon a beautiful waterfall. I didn't feel like lugging my camera on the hike, so we stopped at an overlook on the way out so I could snap a few photos:








And on the drive home, of course we stopped at The Apple House for apple and pumpkin donuts.

Crunchy leaves, a hike in the woods, and apple donuts? Check, check, and check!