Road Trip in May 2012 - Virginia

We just got back from a 3-day road trip to Shenandoah National Park. It was a little cool and wet but the wild flowers were wonderful. We started out referencing the park's wild flower weekend schedule (it's this weekend if you are in the area) then supplemented it. Now that I'm home I'm looking more at their wildflower web page to identify what is in my photographs! I'll post more of my photos of Shenandoah and Goshen Pass over the next few days. The ones today are just the intro!

First are some pictures from the Virginia rest stop. I took a similar picture of the 'welcome' sign back when I took my road trip in December. This one has a lot more green in it! It was also a little warmer and I enjoyed the iris that were beginning to bloom. I also noticed that the benches have the Virginia map shape on their backs - it was too wet to sit on though!

There were not many people at Shenandoah while we were there. It is early in the season and we were there on week days. The wet weather probably kept some people away as well. It didn't rain on us while we were out but there were plenty of muddy areas. It was good that the big panoramic views from the overlooks were not our primary objective for the trip because it was way too misty along Skyline Drive. The wildflowers actually are probably better in not-to-bright weather.

Just to give you a small sampling of what we saw - I've included azaleas and trillium photos in this post.

The cool weather is also great for roses and there were some at our hotel that looked so wonderful with their water droplets that I couldn't resist photographing them.