Kitty and I rented a VRBO home for the first week in October in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. We hadn’t been away from Asheville since January, and were looking for somewhere within a day’s drive that was dog-friendly. Initially we looked for homes on lakes, but as Kitty was actively exploring my genealogy, and I had biological relatives in and around Luray, VA, we settled on the Shenandoah River Valley. This has always been an area both of us liked, and then there was Kitty’s unmet desire to see Luray Caverns. Every summer her family would drive up I-81 in July and Kitty would ask, “Daddy, can we stop at Luray Caverns??”
You never know when you rent a place what it’s going to be like. Our worst VRBO experience was a rainy spring break at Folly Beach, SC a few years back. We thought we’d gotten a fine place at a pretty good price. We were driving down I-26 about an hour away when we got a call from the guy we’d been communicating with (Jamie) and he says that if anyone asks, we should say we were “friends of Jamie” and not vacation renters. Not a good sign, but at that point we were en route and out a security deposit. Well, we got there, got in with no drama, unpacked in the pouring rain, and had just settled down to watch Duke/Carolina basketball when there was a knock at the door. We open to see a man and woman drenched and angry: “We’re the owners, who are you??” Then Sebastian comes around the corner and the woman explodes “And you have a dog!!!” I say “But he’s a very nice dog” and she softens a bit. Luckily, the owners decide it’s not our fault, redirect their ire at Jamie, and let us stay our week.
It has been a while since we tried VRBO, but this time, we were in luck. The cabin, just north of Luray in Rileyville, was even better than what we’d expected. It was named “Star View” and the big sky was the first thing that struck me. The milky way was vivid at night as we were on the border of national forest and there was little light around. The cabin itself was situated on a ridge overlooking the river valley. It was fairly new construction, and had good natural light with big windows and a great wrap-around deck. It was set on 46 acres of farmland, and although there were two other buildings on the property, it was very private and quite comfortable. There was a hot tub off the basement that rumbled day and night and made us guilty for not using it. Kitty did get in briefly the last night. I served as handmaid, and held her towels. The sky at night was amazing. The view afforded the slightest glimpse of the river, which was about a 10 minute walk down the drive and across fields. We were very pleased.
The greatest challenge and delight was no internet or cell service. I did miss not being to post photos as I worked them up for Flickr, but also had to note that having that extra time meant I was more likely to return to do more post-processing. The take-away here was that having some delay in my publishing process was not altogether a bad thing. The other lesson for our next trips was that I do not want to rely on one dongle for transferring pictures. Though my new Macbook is a delight in many ways, the lack of an SD slot is problematic. My camera transfer has never worked on the Lumix, and there was one moment this week where I couldn’t get the card reader to function (I think I did not insert the card properly). I also learned that my (second best) lens shade was totally inadequate, and that I will need an external SSD drive for travel photo storage.
Kitty had planned every meal beautifully so we stayed on our diet and only had to go to the grocery store a couple of times. Shopping is limited here–one Walmart and an old Food Lion, so I was glad we packed the food we did. Although we’ve been on a pretty strict diet, we decided since it was vacation we could drink wine. This was special fun as there were a couple of wineries in the area that were surprisingly good. Near the end of our trip, we decided to use the grill, and went to Meadow Mill Market where we purchased some of the best steak we’d ever eaten. We walked, we read, and I worked a lot on my pictures.
Sebastian met the electrical fence just once–he let out a big yelp and then was decidedly hang-dog the rest of that afternoon. The last day as we were packing and cleaning he went feral chasing something down the hill, but it didn’t last more than 10 minutes. For the most part he stayed very close and trustworthy and was the perfect traveler. The hot weather meant we had to be really careful about leaving him the car. Our Luray day was cool and overcast and we found a nice shady spot in the parking lot to leave him for the hour or so tour.
Downtown Luray was a bit depressed with basically one restaurant and one sports bar downtown. They did have nice parks and walkways along the stream that runs through the town. The main bridge was closed for repairs, and I had a sense that disruption contributed to the general despair and impoverishment. We hung out in a camping outfitters store where I bought a nice water bottle and Sebastian found a bone to chew. These days I’m very aware of politics, and felt a bit wary spending time in “Trump Country.” I was pleasantly surprised that we were treated well by everyone we encountered. One day we were exploring a road on the other side of the river with no particular destination. A car slowed and signaled us to stop. I was wary, but it turned out to be a friend of our landlady. Still, I kept my guard up as any queer liberal might in rural USA these days.
We went to nearby New Market, which ended up being more photogenic. In terms of a theme, I found myself interested in how “The War” was remembered and memorialized. Clearly echoes of a romanticized Confederacy abound, one door with a plate covering a spot where Union Soldiers tried to break in (after being dowsed with boiling water from above). I saw one fairly obscure but powerful monument addressing slavery and that was in Luray: one of the few remaining “slave blocks” upon which slaves would stand during auction was hidden behind an oak tree to the side of the library between an old school house and WWII artillery.
I was glad this monument was there, but annoyed that it is so well hidden. The suffering of the Confederacy was much more apparent.
My peak photo experience was stumbling onto an abandoned antique mall. It must have been closed for several years and the place was in shambles and full of mold and cat piss. Everything covered with a layer of dust. They were in the act of moving. The owner looked as though he could be gay, but was flanked by two hulking men who were devouring fried chicken while talking about brisket. They had a big U-Haul half loaded. I’d trailed Kitty into the building, planning first to stay in the car to dog sit. But when I saw leopard drapes adorning what was sure to be a dump, I got curious and left S. to be on his own.
As I entered, the owner told me I could have any furniture I wanted if I would take it away. But I was not there to shop, but rather to capture the evacuated glamour of the place. As Kitty said, it brought to mind Great Expectations. For me, it also summoned the creepiness of Faulkner.
At any rate, in Luray there was that same sense of decayed luxury. If the contents had been your ordinary flea market take-aways, it would have not been notable, but this was faded eloquence (or someone’s idea of eloquence). Here were 10 foot tall crystal chandeliers, and tables of gaudy fabrics. The space was divided into multiple rooms, set as though for scenes in a play, and lights played on the areas for dramatic effect. It was stunning! I was drawn for the photo value and the way the sets played on my imagination. But then there was the filth and decay and darkness.
The other fun photo moments included Luray Cavern, where I was able to use my monopod for the first time. It was handy as a walking stick navigating the steep and uneven entry down into the caverns, and then priceless for some shots where the lighting was quite low but the texture demanded a lower ISO. The other fun photo opportunities were a series of amazing sunsets easily captured from our deck. It was a super-easy way to get more comfortable with my tripod. And then there was simply driving around on the back roads capturing the bucolic countryside and local events. One place with a corn maze had piles of pumpkins and decorative squash stacked with the blue ridge mountains in the background.
There were historical farmhouses and fields and churches. The “Page County Heritage Festival” was in full swing, and I did a quick run through on a very hot day while K. sat with Sebastian. Kitty got to spend time in the Luray Library where she did some genealogy work, and we went by the cemetery to capture headstones of ancestors: the Caves, Somers and Printz families and other names Kitty knew from her research. The biggest challenge for me was the heat–it crept well into the upper 80’s a couple of days, and though the mornings were lovely, we found the heat afternoon tiring. Since our home in Asheville does not have AC, we especially enjoyed the option to retreat into the cool cabin for the hottest part of the day.
This was the week of the Kavanaugh hearings & vote, so in the sense that sometimes no news is good news, being off of Twitter and FB for a week was probably a good thing for our mental health. We did have cable, so weren’t totally in the dark, but I gave up my MSNBC regulars for the week, and we spent most TV time watching old movies on TCM. It was odd to reemerge into the political furor and outrage after our idyllic week in a lovely cabin with birds and butterflies and deer.
This was a good trial run for Spain, as is this post itself. This blog is my first attempt to use WordPress instead of Google’s Blogger for our travels, so feedback from others who have used WordPress would be welcomed. One difference between the two sites is that I seem to have much less space for photos and less options for positioning photos in the blog. I may be missing something, though.
K & L's Travel Blog 