We loaded the car and hooked up our teardrop camper. Then we set off on the road to Virginia. Luckily, it was only 2 hour drive to our first destination. We arrived mid afternoon at Natural Tunnel State Park. In the parking lot there was a neat old train we climbed into.
Old Train
We were going to run out of daylight to set up camp, so we rode down on the ski lift down to see the tunnel. It was only running that day so we took it for fun, knowing tomorrow we could hike the trail down.
Ride down
It was ENORMOUS. The writer from the book described it as ominous and scary, but it was really amazing and fantastic to see.
Train tracks coming out of tunnel
It was huge, and the cliff circled all around you when you stood at the mouth of the tunnel. But, the unfortunate thing was, the TRAINS go right through it. In the Picturesque America book, they were actually concerned that the train might go through as the railroads were expanding, and only a few years later, the railroad was built through it. We went to our campsite to set up camp, because we would look around more tomorrow. We drove to the nearby campsite, and set up camp. Grayson and I have a pop-up tent, so it was a really fast and easy set up. We made a fire and cooked a nice sausage and rice dinner. We went to bed a bit chilly but very excited to be on our trip.