Vacation, day one

Every couple of years Victoria and I gather up the kids and run away for a two week road trip. The kids all travel pretty well so we don't have any problem with driving.
This year the plan is to head up to Niagara Falls and see a bunch of stuff along the way.
First thing this morning Victoria and I finished packing up the truck and headed over to Granny and Granpa's to pick up the kids. After a good breakfast and a good bye kiss for the grandparents and the ferret we were off.
The first leg of the adventure is a drive to Loft Mountain campground in Shenandoah National Park. Victoria took on the driving for the first 300+ miles. We held the speed limit for most of the way with no problem whatsoever.
I took over the driving shortly after we entered Virginia. Within a mile we had slowed down to 15 miles per hour for the next hour. From the plethora of Ohio plates and college aged kids in the cars I presume that we had timed our passing on this sectioon of interstate exactly with the mass exodus from some college sporting event. The traffic eventually broke up and we resumed our speed limit drive. The only real issue is that the right front tire is wearing funny so I may have to buy a tire and an alignment at some point before we head back home.
The last 25 miles to the campsite were along the skyline drive. This is a beautiful drive. There wasn't much traffic at all here. And we had two more wheels than most of the other visitors.
After a very pleasant conversation with the campground ranger we made our way to the site. The whole campground is at about 3000' on the very top of the ridge. Our site is plush. It's in a natural meadow with ferns and short foliage for the most part. There are just enough short tree to give us a little privacy from the other guests but not enough to detract from the view. And since we have the kids we picked a site that's not too far from the potty, but not too close either.
After we set the tent up we went up to the amphitheater for a ranger program. We got there early and frankly I thought the 30 minutes we spent talking with the ranger before her official schpeel was even better than the presentation.
I made several failed attempts to try to capture an awesome sunset on my camera. The pictures came out pretty good but not nearly as the real thing.
Tomorrow we'll head down to see Monticello.