September 23 - 26 Marion, Virginia
Hungry Mother State Park
Really? Another Buc-ee’s?? When you get on the Interstate, you just HAVE to stop if you see one – LOL!! This one we had been to last year when we visited Gatlinburg, TN. Well, geez – it’s right there before you get on I40 so how can you NOT stop?????
And here we are, back in VA – the state we lived in for so many years – got married here – raised our kids here – and then the rest is history (we moved to CA in 2003 to help take care of Donna’s parents).
This state park was recommended by many, so we put it on our travel path. It didn’t disappoint. There are 3 campgrounds within the park, nestled in the woods. They rent the usual water craft items and have a great beach area. The park is one of the six original CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) parks that opened in June of 1936. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
The quaint town of Marion is just that – a few shops and restaurants – including one of our favorite VA chains – Macado’s.
We kept seeing road signs for “Back of the Dragon”???? Never heard of it. We took off to find an overlook to view the beautiful mountains and realized we were ON the Back of the Dragon – LOL!!
The overlook had a map and low and behold – well –yeah!!!! It began at the State Park and went 32 miles, with 438 curves, at 3500’, to the small town of Tazewell.
We took another gorgeous drive through the mountains in Virginia – with the leaves turning. Something we don’t see except in the east is the vines that take over the brush and trees.
Kinda creepy!!
We’ve lucked out thus far with no rain…..until we wanted to go for a hike. Nope – it rained all night and more came, so we decided we didn’t want to trench through the mud…..now we are on Hurricane Helene watch as we head northeast!!!
We just LOVE this part of the country! Fall is the perfect time to be here……
