Natural Bridge, VA

It was raining when I got there, and I wandered around the gift shop for a while wondering if it was really worth $10 to go out in the rain and look at wonders of nature. (It was; I used up all the space on my camera card.) Once I got my ticket, they sent me out the back door past all sorts of signs saying you can either take the quarter-mile walk down the stairs there, or press the call button and wait for their shuttle bus. It was a lovely walk, with a stream falling down beside the path, and lots of interesting trees.

On the left is the postcard I got in the gift shop. On the right is the actual tree today, which stands near a sign saying (among other things) that it died in 1980.

This is the classic Natural Bridge photo. It's a huge bridge of rock carved out by the river, and the road signs you can see on top belong to Rt 11, which goes over it. The local indian legend says that it was created as the answer to a prayer when they ran into the canyon while fleeing from a hostile tribe, thus allowing the women and children to escape and inspiring the warriors to turn around and defeat their enemies. The land that includes the bridge was originally owned by Thomas Jefferson, and surveyed by George Washington, who allegedly scaled the wall of the bridge to carve his initials 23 feet up.

Beyond the bridge, there's more nature trail along the river. Very pretty.

This is a work-in-progress where representatives of the Monocan Indians are attempting to create a living history village from archeological evidence and the traditions that have been passed down to them. The people I talked to said they had been working on it for two years now, and there are a number of things that haven't been finished yet, due to things like not harvesting enough cattails and tree bark in season; you can see tarps over the structures at the left, and the pine-branch roof on the right of this picture is another substitute until they get more tree-bark this season.

With the water a couple inches from washing over the bridge (and the sign warning of potential flash floods) this was where the trail ended, though according to the brochures there's another more-than-half of the trail that can be visited on dryer days.

In this location Carmen Sandiego would probably steal: George Washington's initials