Crowd Free Labor Day Weekend

I had a hard time deciding where to go for Labor Day weekend this year.  I wanted to avoid flying if possible, so that pretty much left a drive up North or South.  Hitting the beaches in SC sounded nice except for the risk of hurricanes.  A drive up to New England would have also been nice but I was afraid of the crowds.  Either way, I didn't want already long, 8 hour drive turn into an even long one and then have to fight crowds once there.  So we ended up going somewhere close by - to the Blue Ridge Mountains and Smith Mountain Lake. 

I had been to Blue Ridge Mountains before, but this would be Brad's first.  There's actually not as much to see or do on the Virginia side, but I figured he would enjoy the drive on the Parkway.  I had expectec loads of crowds since many people were there having a picnic over the memorial day weekend when I was there last.  This time though, there was no one around!  I guess September isn't a busy time here - fine by me!  I suppose I can see how early Spring or fall (for the colors) might be a prettier time to visit, but it was still nice in the mountains.  We started off in the Peaks of Otter and James River areas for a short walk.  Then drove all the way up to Hump Back Rocks.  I hadn't done this hike before, so we gave it a shot and were glad we did.  The hike up is a pretty steep incline, but a short one.  Took maybe 40 minutes to get up.  Up top we were rewarded with a gorgeous view atop the rocks.

For our lodging, we based ourselves out of Lynchburg.  We stayed in the historic downtown area that was desolate with very little going on.  We got a good hotel off of Travelocity's Top Secret Hotel deals though and were using it only to sleep in, so it worked out just fine. 

On our second day we headed over to Smith Mountain Lake State Park.  I didn't actually know this place existed until I saw a brochure at the hotel.  It's a HUGE lake offering lots of recreation.  Many people were out boating this day, but the lake is so huge you could feel like you out here by yourself.  You can swim in the lake or even go fishing while in the State Park area.  Had I known about it earlier, we could've done more here.  Instead, we hiked around some of the trails here.  There was a cute little island called Turtle Island where we hung around a bit.  How nice would it be to live lake side?  I'd really like to know what all these people who have the $500,000 houses around the lake do for a living out here in middle of nowhere Virginia.

We didn't stay all day at Smith Mountain Lake due to our lack of planning here.  So we drove back to the Blue Ridge Mountains, had a late afternoon snack in Roanoke, and drove up Roanoke Mountain.  We finished the day off with a bit more driving on the parkway and back to Lynchburg for our last night