Since I was touring the "neighborhood" anyway, and since the weather was still quite nice for late fall, I decided to extend the tour by visiting Virginia for about three weeks. Being more of a mountains than a beaches kind of guy, I thought I'd follow the Appalachian mountain range down to see what there was to see and to do what I was interested in doing while there. A very easy and scenic way to do so would be to follow the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway (both units of the National Park Service) from Front Royal in the north to the North Carolina border in the south. A total of about 325 miles. I figured I'd do side trips to rivers, parks, and other points of interest along the way down and back. The Appalachian Mountains are believed to be a very old mountain range, with mountains that were at some time in our geological past higher than the Himalayas or the Rockies. They have eroded and worn down considerably, and now range from about a half mile t