Oh, Shenandoah's my native valley.

For a brief period in 2006, "Oh, Shenandoah's My Native Valley" was the state song of Virginia. I can't figure out why they changed it, because if I were from Virginia, I would surely claim that Shenandoah was my native valley. Because I kind of wish it was. I mean, I love the Salt Lake Valley, you kn0w, where I grew up, but have you ever been to the Shenandoah??

The Shenandoah Valley is heaven. Literally one of the most beautiful, heavenly places I have ever been. Zion's National Park is beautiful, I love Bryce Canyon, Arches was fantastic, the Wasatch Mountains are breathtaking at times, but I had never seen anything like the Shenandoah.

So, we went on a little trip to the Valley in late July. And by we I mean like 30 of the BYU interns plus some extras from the ward. We drove up in 5 or 6 cars, got quite lost along the way, but found our destination after stopping at a couple of farmhouses and asking for directions. It was troublesome because we were out in the middle of nowhere, there were no street lights, and hardly an street signs.

We stayed in an cool, civil war era house that smelled exactly like my Grandma Janice's. Stuffy and real, real old and spider-webby and dusty. There were three bedrooms that the girls slept in, and one living room that we made all the boys sleep in. I kind of felt bad for them because we all had beds, but the boys just had the floor. Cameron and Erik ended up sleeping outside on the hard wood porch because there wasn't any room for them inside. :( Speaking of the porch, it was big and spanned the whole front of the house, and there were two porch swings! I love porch swings. There was also a really creepy dirty cellar. We all linked hands to explore it, and we had to duck under the spiderwebs when we were going down the stairs. AND, there were slave quarters in the attic!! Creepy, right? There was a secret staircase that led up there. And all sorts of secret closets and cupboards. Cool, I know.

That night we explored, complained about the rain, had smores that we cooked in the microwave, played mafia, looked at the stars, and sat on the porch swing for hours. It was perfect.

In the morning we drove about a half an hour away to Shenandoah National Park to hike. There were amazing waterfalls and streams, and forests of trees where the leaves lay horizontal so you can see all the layers. And there was a butterfly that LOVED me. It landed on me, then went away, then came back, and went away, and just kept coming back! I named it Simon.
That afternoon, after we got back to the ranch house, we went to the water hole. There was a rope swing and raft and a little dock, and it was super fun except that the water was really mossy and grossy. It kind of turned all of us green. That was dumb. But it was really fun until Genevieve cut her foot on a rail that was sticking out of the raft...

At around 4:00pm, we went back to the house to clean up and head home. But before we could leave, I got Erik to walk me up to a small family cemetary that was isolated on top of a little hill. It was old and overgrown and surrounded by trees, a short stone wall, and small mounds that were slave graves. It was so cool!!

And standing at the top of the hill offered a perfect view of the amazing scenery. Just imagine perfectly lush and green rolling hills and lots of trees and white picket fences and a few random farmhouses. It was clean and pure and perfect. Such an amazing change from the city. Even when I was in Washington I sometimes noticed how trapped I felt. I needed to get out in the open air-- away from the slight pollution and second-hand smoke. And the weather was beautiful that weekend. Just fantastic.

We drove home and all crashed that night, exhausted. But it was FOR SURE one of my favorite weekends of the summer. :)