Sandra and Allen were on their own again for this ride, so we elected to ride Skyline Drive the opposite direction - going from north to south. We took the devils highway (66) out to 55, and then 55 up to 340. Devil's highway? That's Allen's name for highway 66, because bad things happen on that road. This time traffic basically dropped to a crawl on the way towards Warrenton. A major drag, but it cleared up after 10 or so miles. Route 55 was so much nicer. Anyway, we got onto Skyline Drive at the starting point (there is a $10 fee) and experienced cooler weather along with some wind gusts. After a while we got used to that, and we started to really enjoy the scenery. The fall colors are just starting to show, but it still needs a few weeks - October 30th should be much better. The poison ivy was turning red (see the picture below), and some maples were turning red too.
The big event was stopping at the Skyline Lodge, which was about half-way down the road between where we got on (mile marker 1) and where we ended up getting off (route 33 at mile marker 65). We walked over to the dining hall, and they seated us at a lovely table with a beautiful view of the Shenandoah valley. The food was good, the coffee was fine, and we got the rest we needed before returning to the road. Once we reached route 33, it was back to full speed and we joined up with some other bikers on our way up to Warrenton and home. All together, this was a 7.5 hour ride.
