This is a funny story of camping plans gone awry, not once but twice…and for the good, hard work of a GO participant that saved the day!!

Plan 1 was to stay at Heavenly Acres, an established and well run campground—in business since 1995—and which had been our go-to campground exactly the same time the year before.  Website was up and running and looked up to date.   However reservations by website couldn’t be completed.  Tried calling and phone was disconnected.  Emails went unanswered.

Plan 2 was to stay at Lewis Mountain Campground, in Shenandoah NP.  Unfortunately, this campsite was first-come/first-served, but we had used it before on a busy weekend and headed up Friday early.  Found out that all campsites were taken and campground full.

Plan 3 was proposed by one of the attendees to check out other campgrounds in Shenandoah, and success at Loft Mountain Campground.  So we headed there.  Slowly, we wound our way through the foggy to extremely foggy conditions along Skyline Drive (which had been the situation for the last few days) and through the fog, we found the campsite.  The campground was filling up and the fog was slowly getting denser so we quickly set up our tents and shelters and got things situated before heading to the Campstore to get firewood.  That acquired we headed back to our campsite to get cozy in front of the fire and have a good meal.

The fog continued to get thick but by 1 a.m. it had totally cleared to show a dark sky, waning moon just rising on the horizon, and the Milky Way clearly above.  I caught a glimpse of a shooting star and went back to bed.

Early in the morning before the sun came up we were serenaded by a pair of Barred Owls.

Night #2 was clear, but then suddenly became quite foggy drifting in from the East.  An hour or so later, a westerly breeze came up and it became clear however, we had to secure our light-weight screened shelter. 

Next morning we had a quick breakfast and packed-up so that we could go to our morning hike then head home immediately afterwards.

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