Dad K Hits the Trail

It must’ve been very early this morning when Rob's dad Dave left Glastonbury to head for an undetermined location outside Shenandoah National Park. (I'm writing from the Cape.) Dave headed out with sort of a plan, by Mom K standards - first things first he was well-equipped with food including several dozen of my famous "Chocolate Mint" cookies and firm instructions these were to be a form of trail angelship. Also jerky, pepperoni bread, and various other dried hiker things. Dave called from Rte 81 in Pennsylvania, and was still planning to park "somewhere" in Luray, VA and hitch into the park and down to Loft Mountain, at milepost 79.5, and meet Rob there. We'd poked around user groups on the internet enough to know that you should be able to hitchhike in the park OK ... but the parking thing seemed a problem. So today I learned that if you call the "general headquarters" number during business hours, and select the right choice from the recorded menu, you get to talk to Crystal who answers all questions, checks maps, gives advice, and presents you with the welcome news that one can park one's car anywhere at all in SNP, and leave it a few days! (Has to be an actual parking space, or well off Skyline Drive; and you have to include that info on your backcountry permit. No problem! Crystal updated the permit with the car info for us.) Thank you Crystal!! So the current plan is: Dave parks at Skyland Lodge; milepost 41; and sticks out his thumb on Skyline Drive, heading south to Loft Mountain, 38 miles down. I expect he got to SNP at around 1ish. Got a call from Rob at about that time, he was lounging atop a mountain, having a leisurely lunch - but then decided it was time to get moving if he was to meet Dave upon his Loft arrival! So now I'm waiting, waiting to hear they met up, then I can relax a bit. And get back to washing the windows. Til then, here's a Rob-and-Dad picture from the archives:

Dave and Rob, somewhere in the White Mountains (N.H.); May 2005

PostScript: I received a text message from Dave at 6 PM: "Met Rob. Off hiking." Have a great time in beautiful Shenandoah National Park guys! Share those cookies!