Day 5: Big Stone Gap, VA to Alexandria, VA

Day 5: Big Stone Gap, VA to Alexandria, VA = 423.09 miles

Well, we did it. We finished our last leg of the 5-day journey today. We woke up to a beautiful, cool crisp morning high in the tops of the Appalachias. After checking out, we enjoyed a good ol' southern breakfast of biscuits and gravy at the Huddle House.



Funny name...good food.

We then continued on to see what we could of Big Stone Gap.
For those of you wondering why we stayed in a little town called Big Stone Gap...here's why: Katy and I are big fans of an author by the name of Adriana Trigiani. The first book I ever read of hers was called...wait for it...Big Stone Gap! It was a trilogy set in the little town of Big Stone Gap, VA. I never realized it was a real place until I was studying the maps for our road trip and saw it there on the map, in the lower southwest corner of the state. Once I realized it was a real place...I knew we had to stay there.

And that's just what we did!



Just a small mountain town. Not much to it. But we did see names of places that we recognized from the books. Which was fun. And it was quite beautiful up there in the mountains.

But it was time to head on. We headed down out of the mountains, to pick up the interstate again that would take us on into Alexandria.

Along the way, we did make one stop. It was at Natural Bridge, VA. A beautiful place with, of all things, a natural bridge! and caverns and lots of other interesting things to look at.

We love exploring caves, so we decided to take a quick tour of the Caverns at Natural Bridge.

It was neat inside those caverns. Not very big...the tour only lasted about 45 minutes. But there were beautiful formations and lots of water. It was very wet inside. There was even a pool of water, with water continually rushing in. Weird to hear the sound of rushing water, deep underneath the ground.

The funniest part of the whole tour was when we were visited by a little flying friend. The Caves are only open March through October. The other months they are closed because of the bats that call that place home. However, a few of them were hanging around. We saw about 7 total that were clinging tight to the rocks, hibernating. Really small, cute things...that is, until one decided that it didn't want to sleep and was flapping around. It came straight at our little tour group. You should have heard some of the women screaming. It was hilarious!! At one point, Katy was trying to take a picture down an unused tunnel that was all blackness. She was looking through her camera lens and I was watching her. I suddenly saw this black thing making its way up out of the darkness, straight for Katy! At the last minute, the bat swerved before it hit her. Thankfully, Katy didn't see it...and I didn't say anything until it was gone.



We then took a walk to see the Natural Bridge. This bridge was discovered in the 1700s. And was actually given to Thomas Jefferson in his land grant and stayed in his family until sometime in the 1800s. It was a beautiful walk to the bridge.



And as if seeing the caves and bridge were not enough. They had other attractions around the place. Like this one.



Who knew that cowboys fought dinosaurs? Or even rode them?


We didn't make it to dinosaur kingdom or the haunted monster museum. But they are there for another time! :)

The last few hours of the trip were uneventful and we finally arrived in Alexandria. Once again, it was dark, so we were unable to see anything, except buildings and traffic. But we found our hotel and settled in for the night. Tomorrow would be a busy day...and an exciting one as we move into Katy's apartment!

~TT