Finally Heading Southbound

We set out from Shohola in early Fall. What could be nicer than a drive through the mountains as the leaves are turning? Heading West, we proceeded South through the Blue Ridge to New Market, VA.

The rural highway winds through the mountains past farms, close cropped after harvest or full of ripening corn awaiting harvest. The old stone barns occasionally contrast with modern structures, or hybrid creations where the farmer has adapted the original stone foundation with a high tech cantilevered metal super-structure. The undulating greenscape, just beginning to turn brown, is punctuated by the odd tree and clusters of dairy cows relaxing alongside small streams or cow-ponds. A few horses made their appearance. Clearly they are not dusty work horses but appear to be well bred and well groomed, waiting for equitation and dressage practice.

Endless Caverns is not only the name of a very nice well-run campground in New Market, VA but is the site of a natural wonder. Discovered in 1879, two boys literally went down the rabbit hole while rabbit hunting and discovered the caverns. The six mile warren of underground narrow tunnels and vaulted caves, is now open to the public through safely guided tours. While the overall limestone formation is much smaller, the individual stalactite and stalagmite formations rival those of Mammoth Cave or Carlsbad Caverns in the National Parks. The private owners of Endless Caverns have sensitively developed the subterranean features as a tourist attraction by erecting a camping resort on the surface. A feature of which we took good advantage.

What a nice place. There are well sited pull-offs suitable from big rigs to little tents, scattered attractively through the woods. With much untouched undergrowth and trees, you don't notice your neighboring campers. Unless, of course, you feel sociable. With the shared interest in travel and a bit of show and tell, you can always develop a good conversation. Our little teardrop, dwarfed by the 40 footers with their half-dozen slide out partitions, always engenders curiosity. If your style is “camping” is a two-bedroom two-bath mobile and you just gott'a have your own washer and dryer, then we must look crazy or at least minimalist. This camaraderie of RVing is the feature which attracts Francis; personally, I'm more interested in the passing scenes rather than the passer-byes.

Endless Caverns, in spite of the interesting looking junk shops in New Market and an educational walking tour through the caves, was just an overnight on this trip. We were in a hurry to get South to Bristol, in time for the Saturday night show at the nearby Carter Family Fold.

We arrived in Bristol, TN towards dusk. It had been a long but pleasant drive through the mountains. We had a reservation at a camp ground called Shadrack, located outside of downtown but on the main road through Bristol. In our usual effort to avoid the major highways, we had approached our destination by way of a number of back roads. This gave us a scenic tour of rural VA and TN but we were getting tired and ready to park ourselves for a few days. Where was this campground? The main road seemed to have several names, Raceway, Volunteer as well as the usual County, State and Federal road numbers. If we could find a landmark, we would get our bearings. We drove along not seeing the campground signage and pulled over across from an enormous structure. This was a landmark, for sure. It was Bristol Speedway. We were definitely in the South, NASCAR!

The very pleasant young woman on the phone at the campground had no idea where they were located. Are you on route 116? Isn't that the route number for Volunteer Parkway? Are you on the same road as the Speedway? Are you North or South? Every query had the response “Not sure”. Finally after consultation with the other office staff, she was able to respond that the campground was closer to downtown Bristol than the Speedway. We needed to go towards town. Whew! Such are the small adventures in RV camping.

The actual camping area was hidden down a steep hill behind the office building. The rows of campsites clustered down a stream fed valley. There were many trailers clearly set up as Speedway accommodations but there was just one other spot occupied by current travelers. It was a dry day and Shadrack was a lovely place to stay. The hillside hid the highway and buffered the highway traffic, all that one can see being the backdrop of the woods behind the campground proper. If it were raining heavily, staying there could be rather less pleasant. The high water marks on the semi-permanent trailers, clearly marked the frequency that the stream flooded. The sole other campers, told us that they stayed at Shadrack every year on their Southbound FL migration. They knew the place well. Yes, those were NASCAR racer's campers and, yes, the stream flooded! I had a vision of large men wearing too tight shorts with mullet haircuts and slurred curses as they waded their way back to their trailers after a day at the races.

Saturday we began our musical immersion. A tour through the new History of the Roots of Country Music Museum, in Bristol, TN was followed by a visit at to the Mountain Music Museum, which was in the process of relocating to Kingsport, TN. In addition, we enjoyed wandering through the funky little antique and collectibles and pawn shops which line Main Street.