I got up fairly early, but spending some time to try and catch up on the blog made any potential of an early start disappear.   But I managed to get online and leave a message for Duc Pond about the chain and oil change.

Decent roads on this portion of the Parkway.  Not nearly as good as the south end.  As everyone says, you should really go south – then the roads just get better and better.

More of very similar views:

As things were warmer there were a lot more flying insects.   Almost every time I opened up my visor to let some air in, I’d get whacked in the face and close it again.  The smaller ones were also somehow surviving and crawling about the inside of the visor.   At least they weren’t crawling around my ears this time.  In my laziness, I had not buttoned up my jacket sleeve.  Apparently something flew up there and got really angry.  My forearm felt like it was on fire.   And unlike some people, when I took off the jacket, there was a clear, fresh wound still oozing.   Too bad the camera focused on the jacket instead of my arm..

At the end of the Parkway, I pulled out to Waynesboro to get some gas.  I also took this time to place a call with Duc Pond to set up an appointment.   Since the service manager was on the other line, I took the time to check my coolant levels.   Down… Way down below the ‘min’ level.   Unfortunately, the gas station only had 1G jugs of premix.  I ask for directions to something better and the attendant pointed me towards an Advance.  On my way there, I saw a bike shop and pulled over there instead.

Got my coolant and since my call with Duc Pond confirmed that they only had the Scorpion for the front – no PR3’s, I picked up a front tire as well.  Made a huge mess of their parking lot with the coolant, strapped the tire to stack of stuff and made my way to Shenandoah National Park.

More similar views – but with more cities in the valleys now, I think.

But riding through the covered sections was a nice change – different trees at least.

View from the Visitor Center.  Seems like this was the first National Park east of the Mississippi.  Rail travel out west was too expensive, and as people started owning cars, they wanted something closer to home.  It was a big political and financial challenge, but they eventually got a National Park out east in Virginia.

View from the Visitor Center

Everything’s breaking or wearing out – even Buddy Bison’s biner’s done now.

I hadn’t stopped for much of anything so far.  One of the rangers along the Parkway warned of a crazy storm on it’s way south.   She expected it to hit at 4pm and probably sooner as I was heading north.  At least she said I’d see it coming…

As a result, I pushed on through most of the park, not doing any of the hikes.  Maybe for the best, since the park was littered with homeless hippy looking types looking to hitchike for a ride.

Some of the incoming clouds towards the end of the park.

End of the park itself

More crazy clouds.

Pulling over in Front Royal, I looked for a place to eat somewhere between there and Duc Pond.  Googling for chowhound Front Royal bbq took me to Butcher Block Buffet.  I probably should have read the thread a little more carefully – they basically just said that they had BBQ and it was toddler friendly – not that it was actually any good.

The food wasn’t bad… A tiny step up from Uncle Willy’s.

Chicken & Dumpling Soup, Buffalo Chicken Salad and a salad bar salad with some sort of smoked dressing.

Fried chicken, baked chicken, smoked chicken, ribs,  meatball, mac & cheese and fried catfish.

Unfortunately, as usual with my experience at US buffets, my appetite is quickly lost as I start to fill up and look around.  Since this was my only meal, I did eat fairly early (6pm).   And I guess the early bird/senior special was on.   Lot of overweight old folks… escorting even older people to the buffet.  Didn’t take long before I felt like I had enough.

I tracked down a cheap Best Western and checked in.  None too soon either, since it started to rain just as I pulled off the last bag into my room.   Then it really started to pour.   The storm forecasted was finally here – and I was indoors!   At least I wasn’t foolish enough to ignore it entirely and try my hand at camping again.  It was coming down so hard I didn’t even want to cross the parking lot to do laundry, never mind what it would have done to my poor Tarn3 tent.

I don’t know what this was, but I thought I was safe indoors!

All in all, a very fortunate day.  Only real bad experiences were the ones involving insects.  Either smacking me in the face, biting/stinging me in the arm, or crawling over my ear.   My arm still hurts from whatever happened earlier in the day.