My Summer Vacation to Shenandoah, VA (2006)

Day One (Sunday, August 20, 2006)

We started our drive from West Windsor, New Jersey to Cliff’s House, our first cabin, at eight o’clock in the morning. The drive to Elkton, the tiny town in Virginia was intended to be a six and a half hour drive but we made fast progress with a half hour break and arrived at Cliff’s House at 3:00 pm.

Cliff’s house was in the complete country side—secluded from other people. The driveway was blocked by a chain, which, Omar soon figured out, had to be opened by the key to Cliff’s House. The driveway was a good one hundred yards and was rocky and steep. Half way through, the driveway branched out—one of the paths leading to another cabin, Weaver cabin, and the other leading to Cliff’s House. Thank goodness our car was a four wheel driver for if it wasn’t, our car, the good old Jeep, would have rolled backwards and something disastrous would have happened. Parallel to the driveway was a nearly-dried-out creek well named Naked Creek.

Omar and I were nearly jumping out of our shoes for excitement—we couldn’t wait to see the inside of the cabin. From the outside, it looked great! A cabin with the main cabin attached to the staircase and balcony and a basement underneath. Pa made us close our eyes before we entered the cabin and led the way into it. When I opened my hungry eyes again, I nearly screamed out of sheer pleasure. The cabin was one big room, half was the kitchen and the dining room, the other half was the bedroom and living room. There was a bunk bed ( which Omar and I later decided that I should take the top bunk and Omar should take the bottom) that didn’t have a ladder to get to the top, so we ended up propping up a dusty chair that no one would sit on to climb up and down; there was a futon that you could fold out and that could take one or two people to sit on; and two one-seater sofas that also folded out into beds (no one wanted to use these because they were very dusty and disgusting). We also ended up pumping up an airbed and placing it next to the futon. The bathroom was incessantly grimy and disgusting, but better than a pit toilet and could be cleaned if you tried very hard.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing and getting situated in the beautiful cabin.

Day Two (Monday, August 21, 2006)

I slept well enough, but I woke up at around three o’clock in the morning blazing hot and stuffy. The top bunk had its disadvantages. I tried to climb down and move to someplace cooler but I sadly realized that the chair was too far away from me. I ended up giving up trying to be cool and went back to sleep.

I woke up again at around 8:30 am to find Mommy and Papa already awake. For breakfast, we had scrambled eggs, burnt bagels (we were still trying to figure out the best way to work the toaster) and fried potatoes.

We all relaxed that day, dozing and reading. At around three o’clock in the afternoon, we took a walk along the creek parallel to the chain blocking the driveway and enjoyed watching the little fishes jumping up and down and the long snaky eels slither about in the cool water. When it came the time to cross the chain and go back to Cliff’s House again, I pretended to be a show jumping horse and attempted to jump the chain. I jumped at the wrong spot though, a part of the chain in which the elevation of the chain was different at two points, so only one of my feet made it over and the other one tripped over the chain and I fell down, scraping myself badly. However, Omar and I laughed a great deal at the humor of the situation.

When we got back to our jolly cabin, Omar and I played the very fun game of build-a-fortress-of-dominoes-and-then-knock-it-down-in-three-tries. Then we had dinner and read and relaxed and slept.

Day Three (Tuesday, August 22, 2006)

We didn’t do much but relax on Tuesday. I slept much better (with a fan in my face) although I came precariously close to falling off of the bed a few times.

I woke up to nearly burnt potatoes, scrambled and/or poached eggs, and bread. Then, Omar and I went outside, found long, staff-like sticks, and played a sword fighting game. We picked some peaches from the peach tree in our backyard, which although were very small and could have been riper, were very tasty!

After I came back, I read some more and finished reading the book Silverwing and started reading its sequel, Sunwing. Omar and I tried persuading Mommy and Pa into a game of Malarkey, but they kept putting it off until the time had come for us to sleep.

During the night, while we were sitting on the balcony-porch, we heard shots from a hunter’s gun and anger swelled up in my heart and Omar’s. It wasn’t even hunting season and he was hunting in a protected area! We couldn’t do much about it, for the hunter was out of our sight and also for fear of getting shot. Shortly after this phenomenon, we heard a terribly loud and frightening rumble of a motor. Mom went to see what it was and told me that it was a fighter plain. Fear immediately filled my mind. Fighter plain? Would it bomb us while we were on vacation? Was the end near? Then, as if she read my mind, she told me that it was only a U.S. patrol plain, and I calmed down.

Afterwards, we read and slept.

Day Five (Thursday, August 24, 2006)

I suppose I slept well enough, although I could have done better. I kept on having weird dreams of the book I had finished the day before, Sunwing.

For breakfast, we had pancakes with syrup and syrup-smothered sweet potatoes. I put some whipped cream on my pancakes and found it very delectable indeed!! No one else would try my delicious concoction, and they had no idea what they were missing.

After breakfast, we did some of our last minute planning and decided to go horse-back riding at the Mountaintop Ranch only a few minutes away from Cliff’s House. We went to the wrong place, though, and had a kind rancher, who we later figured out was the owner of the place and ready to retire, show us to the right place. He said that he would be selling the Mountaintop Ranch for three million dollars!!!! He’s going to be one rich man! We went to the right place and met all of the five horses: Little Bet, Marni, Blackie, Amanda, and Kacie. We scheduled a trail ride at 1:00—the very next one. There was only room for two more in the group, so only Omar and I got to go on the trail ride. Omar, a complete beginner at riding rode the gentlest horse, Blackie. I, probably the most experienced rider in the group, rode Kacie, and the other two in the group rode Marni and Amanda. Our guide, Kristen, rode Little Bet.

Our ride was spectacular—there were trees all around and the horses went well enough. However, Kristen’s style of riding was different than the style that I was taught at my stable.

After the ride, Omar declared that he now understood why I loved riding so much and decided that he wanted to take horse riding lessons too. I was delighted, but I warned Omar that he would be the only boy at the stable.

From the ranch, we went to Loft Mountain campground—the place that we would stay from tomorrow at three o’clock until Monday. We went to search through the campsites available and reserve a nice, cozy, secluded campsite with some view of the Appalachian Mountains. We finally found the campsite of our dreams. When we arrived back at Cliff’s House (which I could now call home), we started packing up our supplies to take camping. I will miss Cliff’s House terribly!! L

Day 6 (Friday, August 25, 2006)

I couldn’t believe that we already finished our stay at Cliff’s House! It felt like a mere three days!

We started packing up the car at around ten o’clock, after a hasty breakfast of cereal and milk. It was a bright, sunny day and quite hot. Nobody liked stuffing all of the bags and supplies into the box on top of the car and into the trunk and worst, into our, Omar and me, leg spaces. We ended packing up the car at one o’clock pm, and then the cleaning of the cabin, for the next renters’ convenience. We were nearly done with the cleaning. I was on the porch, taking my last glimpse of the view of the mountains from Cliff’s House, Mom putting some last things in the car, and Omar and Pa touching up the cabin, when suddenly I heard a sharp cry of pain from the cabin—Pa! I rushed inside and asked what had happened. The heavy bench from the picnic table that we used as a dining table had fallen on Pa’s foot! There was an angry bruise on the place where the bench had fallen and Pa was in plenty of pain. Omar and I quickly set the bench upright and Ma rushed to get some ice from the icebox. After a few minutes of agony and panic, we were relieved to hear that Pa could still drive. So we set out, at exactly three o’clock.

We arrived at the tent site sometime around 4:30. Its number was G150.

It was a huge tent site, with plenty of room to pitch both of the tents (one of them for Omar and me, the other one for Ma and Pa). Two of the airbeds went in Papa and Mama’s tent, there’s being the larger one, and one airbed in Omar’s and my tent. In about and hour, we had the tents pitched, a hammock up, dinner cooking, and a fire blazing. Omar and I settled down to read, and had dinner, and slept. Mama ended up coming in our tent as well; she was too frightened that something terrible would happen to us. Nothing terrible did happen to us though, and I slept a sound, dreamless sleep.

Day 7 (Saturday, August 26, 2006)

We slept pretty well, Ma, Omar, and me in one tent (quite squeezed together…) and Pa in the other (with all the room in the world). We woke up and walked to the bathroom, only some thirty feet away from our tent site. I nicknamed the area around the girls’ bathroom side “spider haven” because of the numerous spiders and daddy-long-legs that lived there. I lived in perpetual fear of the spiders when I was in Spider Haven, so I tried to get out of there as soon as possible. Today, the bathroom, the girls’ bathroom at least, smelled thickly of cigarette smoke, which we later figured out, was because of the cleaning lady.

Omar and I spent the rest of the day reading. Omar nearly finished Silverwing and I read one hundred pages of Anne of Green Gables. Often, we had minor fights on who got to sit on the hammock and read, and we finally decided on ten minute shifts; Omar took the first ten minutes, then after ten minutes, I could push him off of the hammock and sit and read on it for the next ten minutes and so on.

In the evening, we all took showers in the public shower place next to the camp store. The showers were gross and had a terrible stanch.

After showering, we ate a quick dinner of soup and hot chocolate, then we carried off to bed.

Day 8 (Sunday, August 27, 2006)

We all slept considerably better than we did the day before; we managed to find a way to snuggle in the small tent and still have some space to ourselves. We woke up at nine o’clock and prepared to take a hike up to Rose River Falls. We packed sandwich making materials and some drinks (soda and water). At around one o’clock pm, we got in the car and set off for the start of the trail that led to the falls.

The drive was one hour along Skyland drive and my legs were already feeling tired when we got there. We started on the steep downhill trail (which I was already having dreadful premonitions about coming back up again). It took about forty-five minutes to an hour to get to the falls.

The falls weren’t as we expected (a tremendous rose tinted cascade). Instead, we saw a branched out stream that fell down the fifteen foot cliff. Perhaps the waterfall wasn’t so big because of the lack of rain that fell that year.

We stayed at the falls for one and a half hours and came back up the ten-degree sloped trail. Pa made the coming back up the trail a race, which I won, Papa close behind. This was least expected; everyone would expect Omar, the fittest of us, to win. I suppose he would’ve won if he had not been pushing poor, exhausted Mom up the trail.
When we came back, we read, ate, told a few tales around the fire, read some more, and slept.

Day 9 (Monday, August 28, 2006)

We all slept well that night. It was Monday, the day we were supposed to leave Loft Mountain campground. L For breakfast, Mommy took Omar and me to the wayside. Omar and I had hash browns, which were delicious, scrambled eggs with buttered toast, which were quite good, and pancakes, which could have been better. Overall, Omar and I decided that we liked Mom’s breakfast better.

When we got back to G150, the packing began. Into the car went the sleeping bags, the tents, the food bag, the ice box (which we nicknamed Cool Dude), the big blue clothes bag (A.K.A. the Sack) and all of the camping supplies that we brought with us.

At two o’clock pm, we were finally done packing, Omar and I having hardly any leg room, Papa driving (his foot was feeling much better) and Mamma giving directions. We were going to Glass House, our next cabin. The closest town, Front Royal, Virginia, was only five minutes away

We arrived at Glass House at five o’clock pm, after getting lost for a few minutes. The driveway was blocked by a bright scarlet gate which had to be opened with the key to Glass House.

We stepped in the house and immediately decided that we liked it. It had a screened porch with stunning views, eight bunks, a surprisingly clean bathroom, and a kitchen. There were four rooms counting the bathroom and the porch. The kitchen and four bunks were in one room, and attached to it were the porch, the bathroom, and another room that contained four more bunks. Omar and I took the room attached to the main room that had the four bunks, and settled down in it. We couldn’t bring many things into the house because almost instantly after we arrived it started raining quite heavily. All that we managed to get into Glass House were our bedding and the food bag. We had our dinner in the porch, laughing at the envious world around us—they had to suffer in the rain and we were snuggled up in our cabin.

While we were washing our dishes, we spotted two hornets outside of the screened window and jumped to the conclusion that there was a hornets’ nest near by. Omar wouldn’t stop worriedly talking about them; even though there was no way that they could possibly get in.

Finally, at eleven o’clock pm, we fell asleep.

Day 10 (Tuesday, August 29, 2006)

Today we woke up at 9:00 am. For breakfast, we had fried potatoes and eggs and bagels.

I finished Anne of Green Gables and Omar nearly finished reading Sunwing. At around four o’clock pm, we decided to take a scenic drive on route 780

But we had only just hit the road when Pa told us that he was having a terribly hard time turning the steering wheel. We were also almost out of gasoline. So we stopped at a store that happened to have gasoline pumps along the way and as we were filling the car up with gas, we asked the store owner for some advice on our steering. Omar figured out that there was a leak in the place where the steering fluid went. If you want a detailed explanation on what exactly went wrong, I’m afraid I cannot tell you for I myself was very confused and decided to let Omar, Pa, and Mom take care of the problem.

The steering wheel, according to Pa, was still very had to turn so we went to a professional auto shop in Front Royal. They told us that the steering fluid pump was not working (I hope you are not confused as I am) and that we had to come back tomorrow to fix it, since the auto shop was closing very soon. We decided that it was not safe to drive when the car couldn’t turn properly, so we went back to Glass House.

Day 11 (Wednesday, August 30, 2006)

We woke up at 8:30. Pa had gone back to the auto shop to get our good old Jeep fixed.

Omar and I had breakfast in bed while reading our novels: Omar still working on Sunwing, I started reading The Long Patrol. Our breakfast consisted of Fruit Loops and milk.

When Pa got home with the car nearly fixed, we decided to go to the Shenandoah Outfitters, a place where you could go canoeing, rafting, kayaking, and tubing. We arrived too late to do anything (we got lost) and when we did arrive, it started raining. We booked a raft for the next day and left.

After that, we searched around for a pizza place, for Mom and Pa had promised us pizza for lunch, and Omar and I were starving. After getting lost in Scenic Page County (VERY beautiful!!), which we later found was a great short cut to get to the town of Luray as fast as possible, we finally made our way back to Front Royal and got our pizza.

When we arrived back at Glass House, Omar and I played the classic game of build-a-fortress-of-dominoes-and-then-knock-it-down-in-three-tries, read some more, ate dinner, and settled down to sleep. It was still raining quite hard, and we worried whether the Shenandoah River was too flooded for us to go rafting the next day.

Day 12 (Thursday, August 31, 2006)

Today we woke up at 8:30 and we all immediately jumped out of bed; today we were going rafting on the Shenandoah River and we were supposed to be at the outfitters at 12:00 noon. We had a hasty breakfast of pancakes with syrup (we ran out of whipped creamL), pulled together some sandwiches, and were out of the cabin at 10:30. We were a little worried that because of the heavy rain the day before, the current would be rapid and that there would be more white water than we expected.

We got to the outfitters at 11:30 am and were warned by the staff that by two o’clock, the tip of the hurricane Ernesto would touch the Virginia, bringing heavy rain and thunder.

We took our life jackets and paddles and drove with a staff to the place where we were to push off our raft. On the way, we collected information on the river and rafting. The route we were going on was three miles and there would be a sign marking each mile and a stop sign when someone would pick us up and drop us back to our car. He also said that there would be one white water rapid shortly after the second milepost and that if the storm came early, before two o’clock, then we were to pull over to the side and onto shore and wait until the storm passed.

We finally arrived at the push off place, pushed off our raft, and got started.

It took us around and hour to get completely situated and figure out how to work the raft and get it to go its full, but slow, speed.

Shortly after we started, around two minutes through, we encountered some white water, which was completely unexpected—we were sure we couldn’t have possibly gone even a tenth of a mile yet! During the two hours, we encountered many white water rapids and got stuck on a few rocks but fortunately, we never tipped over. In the end, we couldn’t figure out which one of the rapids was the class two one that the staff talked about. We all decided that we loved the feeling of going over white water and had to go white water rafting someday.

We were picked up at 2:00 as promised (no rain had begun to fall yet). Then we ate lunch at some deserted picnic area and proceeded back to Glass House.

Day 13 (Friday, September 1, 2006)

Mom woke me up at 8:30 in the morning to sit in the porch and watch the moving clouds. It was raining very heavily—the hurricane had arrived!! This was our last day at Glass House L and we spent a good four hours in taking showers, and packing things into the car. We were going to Weaver cabin next, and our expectations were very low. By now, we were feeling somewhat homesick, although I could stay at Glass House for another week.

When the time came for us to leave our beloved Glass House, Omar and I sat in the car, cuddled up in our sleeping bags and stuck tissue papers in some cracks in the door that water was slowly dripping into the car to. We tried our best to keep the car clean of grime and mud from outside and we got as comfortable as we could.

The drive to Weaver was two hours. We were supposed to stay there for three days. We soon discovered that Weaver was a mouse infested cabin that had a disgusting outhouse and stank of feces. It was not suitable to live in for three days, so after disappointment and getting soaked, we made the decision to leave Weaver and go home.