When you open yourself up to life, Life opens up to you!: Skyline Ranch Resort & Hiking With Phil

Heading out of Maryland into Virginia, Oct 28, to Skyline Ranch Resort, Front Royal, VA. Some may know Front Royal as the town in which you can pick up the Skyline Drive, part of the Shenandoah National Park. Interesting tidbit, Front Royal is the only incorporated town in Warren County, Va., as such it is also the county seat, founded in 1788. Quaint old town gone commercial.

Skyline Ranch Resort is one of those that make me shake my head over the use of Resort, come on folks it's a campground. Granted one with several amenities but still it's an older well used campground. Speaking of amenities I have a bit of a problem with places advertising amenities and then not have it available or all but unusable. Case in point, one of the big draws at Skyline is the offering of Horseback Trail Rides right there on the premises. Ummm, except for when it's not available like the whole week we were there. The horses were there but the person who leads the rides works on her own schedule and is there well, whenever she feels like turning up, I guess. That was a big disappointment for me. The pool not being available, okay that I understand it is the end of October. They did have other offering but most of the areas were pretty run down. The miniature golf course hadn't been re-carpeted in much to long, the horseshoe pits were not tended to and there were only 5 shoes and 4 lanes. Fortunately, we were the only ones playing so it worked out okay.

All in all though it was a decent place that just needs some TLC. The staff were all friendly, the bathhouses clean with hot water, had a gym, laundry, arcade room, farm animals (goats, pigs, alpacas, horses and a donkey), even a darling little Chapel. There was a cafe on premises were the food was decent and inexpensive but only drawback was because it was off season had a very limited menu. (actually the menu was extensive but little was available.) And it was cold, well, I guess that's not the campground's fault, LOL

We had the pleasure of Phil's company for several days. Drove out to Skyline Drive with the hope of getting in some hiking. Did we pick a bad day for that. We knew it was going to be cloudy with the possibility of a bit of rain but did not expect it to be so foggy one could hardly see the road in front of us. Just a wee bit on the scary side with all those curves!

We did manage to get about a ¼ mile on the A.T. before it started to rain. I think I must hold the record for one of the shortest section hikers, LOL.

Check out those clouds!

Anthodites

We got off the drive at the first available place and was going to call it a day when we came upon Skyline Caverns. Huh, okay, why not. Went in and was so glad we did. Being a very slow day we got a personal tour of the caverns. The guide was very informative with a great sense of humor. The caverns were fascinating and home to beautiful white crystal formations called Anthodites. Skyline Caverns being one of the few commercial caverns in the US to have them and claims to have the longest “flower.” That was cool to see.

We went out again the next day to the Shenandoah River State Park. This time we got a good hike in despite a shower or two. Beautiful views of the mountains and the Shenandoah River and the park had a really nice nature center. If you're in that area you should check it out.