Virginia
Due to many crazy things going on in my life at the time I decided I needed a break. I needed to get away from the city, see some wildlife, get back to nature, remind myself what trees looked like. I decided that the best location for this was Virginia. It was far away from Manhattan but was still within driving distance. I chose to visit the Shenandoah valley as it has the Shenandoah national park which I had heard has some great hikes. I found a hotel with a bar and booked 5 days stay. The whole planning process took less than a day, from idea to booking, and only another 24 hours before i was hitting the road to start the vacation. This was my first real vacation in 5 years so I was definitely looking forward to the break.
It turned out that my choice of location was perfect. The Holiday Inn that I had booked into was newly renovated. There were a few teething issues that it was still going through, such as horrible restaurant food and a coffee machine in my room that never worked, even after they replaced it, but the rooms were great. I was surprised at the cost of the rooms, they were very cheap compared to other Holiday Inns but this did not mean that the quality of the room was less. In fact, the room was of a better quality than I have experienced from any of the other Holiday Inns I have stayed at. The location of the hotel was also perfect. It was right by route 33 which was the main road I needed to access all the locations I wanted to visit. There was also an extremely large supply of eateries located within a 5 block radius.
The weather turned out to be my friend for most of the trip. The weather stayed warm and dry for all but the last day. During my stay I didn't wear a jacket once. In fact on one of my hikes I managed to get sun burnt and achieve a low level of heat stroke. Which may not be surprising to most, but what surprised me most was that while I am getting heat stroke there was still snow either side of the trail! Even though the weather was very favorable, the seasons had not turned early enough for the trees to be blooming or for the plants to be showing. This did limit my photographic opportunities, and most likely the reason why I wasn't totally happy with the quality of the photos that I took, but it still did provide me with some nice views.
All in all the trip was very successful. I would recommend this location to anyone who needs to get away from the hustle and bustle of a big city. I got to experience some piece, some calm, and some quietness. All things that I had forgotten had existed. I was able to recharge my batteries and get my head back in the game. Now the only thing I have to do is get rid of the 5 pounds that the great food added to me. I cant stress this enough, if you ever see a Texas Roadhouse chain, eat there, it is INCREDIBLE!
To get a day by day breakdown, click the links above.
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