BREAKS INTERSTATE PARK, VA

May 2008

For the Memorial Day weekend, we went to Breaks Interstate Park which is in VA on the border of KY. It's also known as The Grand Canyon of the South with 4,500 acres of Appalachian hardwood forest and sandstone bluffs. Most of the developed parts and all the marked trails are on the Virginia side.

As with most state park campgrounds, this one was beautiful with lots of tall, tall trees and shade. That's our truck and little camper on the left in pic.

Close up of our little camper. We didn’t open the awning because we had lots of tree shade. It's a totally refurbished 1973 PlayMor Travel Trailer. Ripped out everything including the walls and replaced needed studs and corners of floor and rebuilt the whole thing with new, including a portapoty. We love it and it's perfect for just the two of us.


STATELINE OVERLOOK
Approaching the Stateline Overlook. All overlooks have this rocky terrain since they are set upon the towering cliffs lining the rim of the canyon.

View along the fence of the Stateline Overlook. These pictures were taken late in the evening our first night there.

Me standing on the rocks at the far left corner of the overlook.
John was on the huge boulders in front of me.

A shot of the "center" of the view off the overlook. It was getting dark, but the setting sun created these contours in the mountains not seen the next day with the sun behind us shining out onto the gorge!

This late evening pic shows the peaks and valleys of the mountains to the far right. The scene was so drastically different the next day when the sun was shining right into these mountains that I didn't even recognize it as the same overlook! The mountain totally flattened out!

View off to the far right of the mountains in the previous picture. Down there in the valleys, almost dead center of picture, there is a house! See it?

Here, this will help: Using my 12x zoom, here's the house down in the valley! Must be a park keepers house as I cannot imagine anyone living there otherwise.

John and me on the trail from the parking lot to the Stateline Overlook.
This was the only short, easy trail leading to an overlook.


CLINCHFIELD OVERLOOK
A typical "hike" down to an overlook, this time at the Clinchfield Overlook .

Down near the very bottom center of this picture, there is a railroad tunnel. You can just about see the tracks down there.

This was my first time using my new Canon S5 IS Digital Camera and I messed up the settings and therefore, the pictures. In trying to salvage the pics I wound up with a pink sky!

Here's a close up of the tunnel through which the Clinchfield Railroad travels on it's route through the gorge.

While we were there, a train came through the tunnel while I was taking a video of the gorge! That was a nice surprise. It sure sent up a lot of rumbling, squealing and other noises as it cruised through the otherwise quiet gorge.