Spring comes alive in the Shenandoah Valley (2017)

On Easter Sunday we spent the day in Orange and Charlottesville and decided to take the much longer way home via Skyline Drive. We entered the Shenandoah National Park at Charlottesville and drove a while until the rain continued became more steady. It was getting late anyway so we exited at Swift Run Gap (Route 33). 

Along Skyline Drive we stopped several times to see spring coming alive in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A reprieve of the rain even gave us a double rainbow, which faded quickly but the single rainbow lasted for a long time (we watched it along the roads after we left the park).

Double rainbow before it faded completely

Single rainbow

The colors of spring are emerging

The sun sure was trying to peek out during sunset but there was a thick cloud cover between storms

Chasing dragonflies in the Shenandoah Valley

Yesterday we took a ride out to the Shenandoah Valley to tour, explore and just have a nice relaxing day. We managed to see a lot of things, but one exciting moment of the day for me was when I captured my first dragonfly with my camera. These critters I don't see a lot in my neighborhood, and when I do, they are always so elusive. I've never taken a photo of one.

That changed yesterday, here are a few pics taken outside the Edinburg Mill Museum (under the bridge). Other than being cropped a bit as I took them from a distance, these have not been edited.

'Body of water' in the Shenandoah Valley

The landscape in the Shenandoah Valley is so beautiful - I love to head west just to see it. We took a day trip during the week of Christmas and explored a few of the towns located off I-81.

The view from here was so beautiful I stopped to take a photo. Looking at it later on when I got home, I had to think about it for a minute as we weren't near any bodies of water except one over in Edinburgh where we fed some ducks. Where was this taken?

After a minute or two I remembered, this "body of water" in this image is actually a large puddle located in the parking lot of the Route 11 Potato Chip factory.