A Summer in the Appalachians

Today marks the first day of fall, and change is in the air. I can smell it. Here at 1500m elevation the leaves are just beginning to yellow. A few collect under our bus’ awning, crunching under our feet as we move about our day. These now-familiar mountains are beginning to transform before my very eyes.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected to pass an entire season in the Appalachian Mountains, yet here we are. The leaves do not lie. We’ve spent our summer in the Appalachians. And it was just as transformative as these leaves.

The decision to spend our summer in the Appalachians was purely practical. We were in Atlantic Canada with the goal of heading toward Mexico for the winter. The Appalachians were just sort of on the way. We could have followed the coast, but the equation of summer heat and humidity with a baby in a non-air-conditioned bus didn’t ad up.

I’d love to say the mountains were beckoning us (I could even break out in song – “the hills are alive with the sound of music”), but it wouldn’t be true. The Appalachians were simply the best option when you’ve spent a winter in Canada (who does that?) and need to head south in the heat of the summer.

As such, we had very few expectations of our summer in the mountains. We hoped to hike a bit, enjoy some nature, and stay cool. Most importantly, we wanted to get adjusted to life in our bus with a baby – no small feat.

As I shared on the blog, I was pretty anxious about moving into the bus with Phoenix. As expected, those early weeks were challenging, trying to fit life with a baby into a tiny space while dealing with the summer heat and humidity of the Northeastern US. In those moments, the Appalachians took on the lure of the promised land, and as we inched our way closer and closer (which seemed to take forever!), I could only pray they would provide us the salvation I so desperately needed.

Shenandoah National Park delivered that salvation. As we wound our way up the narrow sea of mountains, the temperature dropped to more comfortable digits. Despite being under a canopy of dense forest, we found a campsite at Big Meadows that gave our solar panels access to sunlight. There was a laundromat in the campground (yippee!) and a [meager] cell service on the edge of the cliff at the other end of the campground. We had everything we needed to set up camp.

So we set up camp we did. For a month. (I talk about this in my Vlog on Shenandoah). The only times we moved the bus were the couple of times we went to the nearest town to do groceries (each time I stuffed our bus silly with melons and squashes and potatoes to tie us over once the more perishable produce was gone) and a forced campground change fifteen days in.

It wasn’t that Shenandoah National Park was particularly amazing. Yes, the wildlife was abundant, and we thoroughly enjoyed having black bears and deer in the campground. Yes, it was great to be in nature, with fresh air, starry evenings, and the sounds of crickets rather than traffic. And yes, it was awesome to hike small sections of the epic Appalachian Trail, crossing smelly but inspiring thru-hikers (I even lent one of them my hair dryer one evening and got to hear real-life stories from the trail!)

But it was no Grand Canyon. Shenandoah was created with the intention of offering a national park to easterners as outstanding as all those out west. The creators purchased a narrow tract of land from mountain families (who had logged and farmed here for generations), let the land return to its wild state, and built a scenic road – called Skyline Drive – down the center of the park.

To this day, Skyline Drive is the beating heart of the park. But in our opinion, the views it offered were just average.  It’s always nice looking out from atop a mountain, but at Shenandoah, there is often a lot of haze (the park being so close to all those big coastal cities), and the view is mostly of towns and farmland rather than wilderness.

Also, the weather – though mercifully cooler – was still not ideal. The region had experienced its rainiest summer in years, and there were times where we were stuck in the bus all day. The rain would often come down sideways, meaning that even the space under the awning was off-limits. And between the storms, the no-see-ems were so bad they were drawing blood from my baby boy! While we were definitely grateful to have upgraded from Totoyaya (how would we have entertained Phoenix in that?), after the 6^th day of non-stop rain (and the 3^rd day of using ice to keep our perishables cold because we had no juice in the solar batteries to power our fridge anymore!), I began to wonder if Shenandoah had offered us salvation at all.

So why did we stay an entire month, you may ask. At the time, we thought it was an issue of timing – we needed a place to park ourselves for awhile and get settled into our new home, and Shenandoah appeared at the right time. With foresight, though, I now realize it was more than that. As our Shenandoah days rolled into weeks, I felt my stress begin to ease up as we settled into our space and routine. Hiking helped. Animal-watching helped. And having the space to do nothing that only nature provides helped a lot.

And so, standing still, surrounded by nature, I was finally able to relax into motherhood. It had taken over five months.

I think Bruno could have continued doing a whole lot of nothing for many more weeks, but eventually, my nomadic side kicked in. We’d hiked all the nearby trails, visited the Visitor’s Center exhibits, and driven up and down Skyline Drive more than once. I needed a change of neighborhoods. Plus, our list of baby-related bus tweaks was piling up. It was time to get to a city.

Bruno and I pulled out a map one evening. We can reach Asheville via the Interstate, I said, or we can take the scenic mountain view. In our pre-baby lives, this would have been a no-brainer, but now I wasn’t sure what Bruno would want to do. I wasn’t even quite sure what I wanted – to get to our destination quickly or make a trip out of the journey?

When Bruno replied that we should take the scenic route, bien sûr, I felt relief. I guess it’s what I’d wanted, too. Perhaps having a baby hadn’t changed our travel style as much as I’d been feeling since we’d hit the road?

Still, I expected our road trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway to take only a few days. I knew little about this byway apart from its name, and the minimal research I’d been able to do had come up with very few camping options.

You can imagine my surprise when I realized that the Blue Ridge Parkway was a national park, too, and one that offered more infrastructure, cultural interest, and beautiful views than Shenandoah! What was meant to be a quick transit turned into a 3-week slow-travel adventure! (Bruno was grateful we had Phoenix in tow or I’d have made him stop at every overlook and every cultural or historical waypoint along the byway!)

The Blue Ridge Parkway was conceived as a scenic byway that would link Shenandoah NP to Great Smoky Mountains NP (the other National Park that was conceived for easterners to enjoy nature). While Shenandoah is one of the least-visited National Parks, the Blue Ridge Parkway is one of the most visited. But with almost 500 miles of byway, we didn’t feel the crowds (I’m told that most visit in the fall for the colorful foliage) and we had campgrounds almost entirely to ourselves

The campgrounds. Basic, yes, but I loved them. There are several of them, interspersed at perfect driving distances along the parkway. I didn’t have to think about researching our next stop or reserving something ahead – we’d just show up at the end of our day’s drive, pick an available spot, and park ourselves there as long as we wanted! We were even given travel pamphlets at the beginning of our road trip that told us what mile marker we’d find each campground and at what elevation it sat – perfect for us, since we were still trying to remain on higher grounds for little Phoenix.

Each campground offered something of interest for us, whether it be a hiking trail, a waterfall, a historic mountain cabin or a lake. We stayed at five campgrounds, and I made sure to do one special thing at each of them. My favorite of all was probably the first – Peaks of Otter Campground. I hiked to the top of Sharp Top Mountain all by myself one afternoon. A solo outing, in itself, was an amazing rush, but combine that with the endorphins of an intense hike and the best views I’d seen yet that and it’s little wonder that it was my favorite mini Parkway adventure (sorry Bruno and Phoenix!).

Even better than that hike, though, was the Parkway’s cultural link to the region. I’d been missing that in Shenandoah National Park. On the Blue Ridge Parkway, there were cabins describing the ways mountain people used to live, a folk art center, a historic mill, and a music center. We were lucky to arrive at Mabry Mill on a Sunday, the day that local musicians get together for an afternoon jam session, complete with flat foot dancing (which is like tap dancing with clogs). The sun was shining, the quaint, wholesome ambience was perfect, and Phoenix was in a great mood to experience his first ever concert. I brought him right up close to the action, and he was absolutely mesmerized, especially by the dancers! It was a special moment for me as a new mom.

I hadn’t known how important music is to the people here. We learned about the history of mountain music (which is the original American music and influenced bluegrass, country, blues, and rock ‘n roll!) and saw another afternoon concert at the Blue Ridge Music Center. But it wasn’t until the following day at our campground, when locals camping near us invited us to their impromptu jam session, that I truly saw how music is in the bones of the Appalachian people.

That’s what I loved best about the Blue Ridge Parkway – I got to learn about the Appalachian people. Yes, I was traveling with a baby and so didn’t spend as much time delving into their culture as I might have a year ago, but even scraping the surface felt like a miracle to me after spending the previous seven months in full-time motherhood.

Just as our two-night stay at the Mohonk Mountain House with my Aunt Louise back in June taught me that I can have a relaxing and fun holiday with a baby (surprise!), our summer in the Appalachians taught me a few important lessons about my new life as a mom. Shenandoah National Park gave me the space and time to unwind and settle into life in the bus with a baby, showing me that, as long as we take the time to move slowly through the world, bus life with a baby can work. And driving down the Blue Ridge Parkway showed me that I can still be a tourist – traveling, discovering, learning, and having adventures – with baby in tow, and that each little moment of discovery will be all the more precious because of that baby!

The mountains we’ve called home this summer are changing before our very eyes. As we experience a new side to these mountains, I’m noticing a new side to myself – one that feels rested, hopeful, and confident that life on the road with a baby can work. I’d come to these green mountains hoping for hikes, nature, and cool weather, and in the end received so much more. Maybe the Appalachians had been beckoning me after all.