From: jcrowder@morse.cns.vt.edu (Jeff Crowder)
Newsgroups: rec.travel
Subject: Re: Info needed: Cape Hatteras, Blue Ridge Mtns
Date: 29 Jul 92 13:13:06 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA

Outer Islands N.C. -

If you're not particularly into camping right on the beach, (I hate
getting jellyfish stuck in my sleeping bag zipper), you can turn right
just past the Wright Bros. museum at Kitty Hawk and drive maybe 2 miles
back to a fairly nice campground.  It has clean showers/toilets and lots
of shade trees.  Its right on Albemarle Sound and there's good crabbing
and fishing right there.  Go past Billy's seafood market (a VERY good
place for fresh fish, cheaper than markets on the main drag) and
continue on past the first "campground" (mobile home park) another 1/4
mile.  Its on the right.

Restaurants:  lots of bad choices.  I strongly recommend you just catch
your own seafood or hit a market and take it back to camp.  There is a
decent place on Manteo called something-Elizabeth-something.  Cross the
causeway and turn LEFT.  The old white restaurant is maybe 4 miles down
and its the only thing around those parts.  You CAN get some great
breakfast deals.  I like the Ebb Tide on the beach drag in the Kitty
Hawk area.  Their 99 cent breakfast is for real.

Activities:  Wright Bros. Museum.  Kite flying/hang gliding on the
dunes.  Surffishing!  Charter fishing (get a boat from Oregon Inlet; all
the boats go through there anyway so its a much better deal to charter
from there OR go on down to the Cape).  Sailing sports on the Sound.
Beachcombing and exploring in the Reserve area (my favorite).


THEN...

Cut out early and head for the mountains!  Taking your vectoring into
consideration, you're in luck.  You can take I-64 from Norfolk to the
intersection of I-81 at Staunton, Va.  Head north to the Edinburg exit
(exit 279 I believe).  Off the exit ramp take a left.  Follow this
narrow paved road about 6 miles to Va route 42.  Jag right a hundred
yards and go left again (I think its the same road number.. MAYBE 675).
Continue on another 4 miles or so to an old store on the right which
used to be called "Rodney's and Theresa's".  Very soon thereafter the
road sort of forks; take the right.

At the top of the mountain is a National Park Service campground called
Wolf Gap.  The Appalachian Trail goes right through it.  A short hike
south will take you to a real nice rock overlook of the western
Shenandoah Valley.  A slightly longer (still only about 3 miles) hike
north will take you to a more impressive outcropping viewing W. Va.
Lots of good blueberry picking in the area (watch out for rattlesnakes
and copperheads).  There're even one or two native trout streams nearby.

Continue past Wolf Gap down the mountain into the small Trout Run valley
of W.Va..  Stop at the first store you come to for some home baked
pastries and take a look at their "zoo."  Ask for directions to Trout
Pond.  This is a very nice National Park recreation area with great
facilities.  Camping, showers, water, swimming (nice sand beach and
clear mountain lake), fishing, hiking, etc..  I could easily spend an
entire vacation right there.

When you leave Trout Pond, continue west to Wardensville, W.Va..  Take
U.S. route 55 east over a couple of mountains to Strasburg where you can
catch I-81 north again.  Or, find your own way north from Wardensville,
the scenery is great.  If you're up for a little taste of contemporary
Appalachian culture, stop for dinner at the White Star restaurant in
Wardensville and don't be shy.  Not a great eatery but interesting.
(Let me back up and rephrase that.  Not really "Appalachian" culture;
you've got to go to southeast W.VA/sw Va/n. Kentucky/ for that.
Wardensville has a mountain-folk subculture of its own which tends to be
influenced by proximity to D.C.).

Enough already...

Have fun,

- Jeff

Jeff Crowder
Virginia Tech
jcrowder@morse.cns.vt.edu   
Newsgroups: rec.travel