Madison, VA 9-5 to 9-18

We just arrived in Madison, VA but we decided to take a quick trip to Culpepper.  On the way back we stopped at Prince Michel Winery and Tap 29 Brewery & Pub. They had the best wine slushies, and they even offered a wine slushie flight!  The flight included: Pina Colada with chardonnay, Peach made with Peach Bellini Mix and Rapidan River Peach Wine, Caramel Apple made with Apple Cider and Senorita Mix and Lemon Drop made with Rapidan River Semi Dry Riesling and Lemon drop mix.  We had a delicious pizza to go with it.  We also took a walking tour of the winery.  What a fun experience.

Madison Vines RV Park was a great find!  With spacious sites, a large pool and even a shop that sells ice cream and pizzas it is definitely one of the better RV parks we have experienced.

What makes it even more impressive are the dinners they have on the weekends!  Every Saturday night they offer a dinner for $9 per person.  The first Saturday we enjoyed a fabulous steak dinner (bottom left) that included a tossed salad, stuffed baked potato, corn on the cob and a roll.  In addition to dessert, wine and beer is included in the $9 fee!!  What a deal!  On Sunday mornings they have an amazing breakfast.  The one in the photo here included juice and coffee, blueberry pancakes, and breakfast pizza.  On Friday night they have bingo night. For $5 a bingo card your dinner is included.  On our bingo night we had a choice of fettuccini alfredo or spaghetti with meat sauce and wine and beer as well as dessert.  It's also nice to get to join a table and meet some of the other campers in the park. A special shout out to Frank and Chris and Tony and Kathy who we met a dinner!

We enjoyed the beauty of Mt Greens golf course in Massanutten Resort. The course had so many ground hogs!  We enjoyed the view of the ski runs that get a lot of use during the winter months.  After golf we stopped in the Camp Fire Grill for what they call "Bag of Local Apples."  It is phyllo dough layered with butter, sugar and spice in a bag style presentation.  Filled with local apples and topped with house made vanilla ice cream, praline pieces and candied ginger.  It was yummy!

This trip we have played beautiful golf courses at fantastic rates.  But Lake of the Woods Country Club will long be remembered because we shot a 64 playing a two-person scramble.  Our goal is generally to shoot par.  But on the first hole, a par four, we took my drive and Mark's approach shot landed in the hole for an Eagle!!  With seven birdies and only one bogie we shot 8 under par.  What a fun day!!

We love to visit our National Parks and Shenandoah National Park did not disappoint!  Much of this park was created by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1933 to 1942.  A bronze CCC worker statue stands at the entrance to the Harry Byrd Visitors Center.  The park features 300 square miles of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

We started with a Ranger Talk on bears.  It is always interesting to hear about these amazing creatures.  The cooler at the bottom right is what one looks like after a bear has attacked it to get to the food stored inside!!

It was a short walk from the visitors' center to Story of the Forest Nature Trail.  The deer are so used to people they just ignore us!

We worked up an appetite, so we headed to Big Meadows Lodge.  It was informative to see the sandwich board outside the lodge that listed all the activities offered including a basket making class.  The dining room had a great atmosphere and a wonderful view.  I chose a flatbread with caramelized onions, apples, bacon, goat cheese, herbed garlic butter, and a balsamic glaze.  Mark opted for the VA Grilled Cheese which included Country Ham, sliced apples, smoked gouda, maple dijon mustard on texas toast with a nice cup of fruit.  After lunch we toured the lodge and found one of the rooms beautifully decorated for a wedding.  Then we stopped and relaxed in the row of rockers enjoying the view.

The Appalachian Mountains are very old.  Over a billion years ago the tectonic plates pushed up the Greenville Mountains.  Hundreds of millions of years later, the tectonic plates collided again, and the Appalachian Mountains were born. We decided we needed to walk off a little of our wonderful lunch and took a hike up to Blackrock Viewpoint.

There is another ranger talk at the visitor's center, so we headed back to hear about Turkey Vultures.  Reader advisory: Turkey Vulture etiquette is a bit unseemly.  It was one of the best Ranger talks we have seen, and we have seen a lot of Ranger talks.  Who knew that the acidic level of their stomach is close to that of battery acid.  They poop on their legs and their feet to keep them clean!  They wait an hour or so before they attack roadkill so that it can soften up a bit.  If something attacks a turkey vulture, they just use the acidic levels of their stomach and puke at them.  Their wingspan is 6 feet!  The ranger told me that I didn't have to worry about the Turkey Vultures attacking me at one of the AZ golf courses that has a lot of them as they only go after dead bodies and not even right away!!

After the Ranger talk, we headed up to the Skyland section of the park.  Massanutten Lodge was built in 1910.  Decades before Shenandoah National Park was established, vacationers traveled to Skyland Resort to seek refuge from city life.  After driving around the area and viewing the exterior of Massanutten lodge as it was not open, we decided we might as well enjoy dinner at the Skyland Lodge.  Always interested to try something new we decided to try the Venison Stroganoff of Venison shoulder, mushrooms, onions, cranberries, cream sauce over pappardelle egg noodles.  Then we headed back to the visitors center to experience the interesting exhibits.  Bottom center is a mile marker from the Appalachian Trail.  Today the trail stretches 2,173 miles from Mt Katahdin, Maine to Springer Mountain, Georgia.  Just over 100 miles of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail traverse Shenandoah National Park.

We planned a day with a stop for lunch in Culpepper.  There are so many restaurants here as it is one of Virginia's foodie destinations. But we just did not have time to experience them.  We made it to "Its about Thyme".  It's an interesting experience because you are waited on by a team, not just one person.  And somehow it worked!  We enjoyed a Roast beef swiss cheese, carmaelized onion and horseradish puff pastry topped with a demi glace.  A side of soup made it just perfect.  What a fun experience in a beautiful restaurant.  

We were in the area of a lot of Civil War sites, so we decided to visit Fredericksburg.  The Battle of Fredericksburg December 11-13, 1862, left the confederates victorious, a town devastated, and a Union Army humiliated.  The confederates held the high ground.  The battle helped establish Lee and his army as the confederate's greatest hope. A hope soon dimmed at Gettysburg.  You can see the stone wall above where the union army sent seven waves of attackers but not one reached the confederate line in the sunken road.  You can see actual civil war bullet holes in the exterior walls of the building in the top left!

The visitors center video and the exhibits in the Visitor's Center vividly illustrates the intensity of the civil war.  When the fighting ended at Fredericksburg, 13,000 of Burnside's troops were killed, wounded, captured or missing. The town was absolutely devastated.

Chatham Manor was built between 1768 and 1771.  This 180-foot-long brick manor house served as the Union Headquarters during the Fredericksburg campaign.  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Clara Barton (who founded the American Red Cross) and Walt Whitman all visited Chatham.

That's it for our stop in Madison - now it's on to Delaware and then NJ for the big celebration party.