Well hello there!: January 2009

With my parents having relocated to Lynchburg, Virginia a little over a year ago, Jesse and I have taken it upon ourselves to explore the good state of Virginia every chance we get! Every time we go down to visit my parents now, we try and fit in a little road trip. This time we decided to head a little bit west and ventured to Natural Bridge, Virginia.

The drive from Lynchburg to Natural Bridge is very pretty, and this was even during a yucky, rainy day in the beginning of January. I can imagine it would be a wonderful drive in the Fall.

Anyhow, Natural Bridge is an interesting little town that contains, none other than, you guessed it! A Natural Bridge. According to information I've found via the internet and other informative sources, the Natural Bridge was carved out by the Cedar Creek, which is a tributary of the James River. The arch of the Natural Bridge is 215 feet tall and 90 feet wide. Pretty impressive, Mother Nature!

The Natural Bridge has had quite a presence in Virginia history - it was once considered a sacred site to the Monican Native Americans (apparently they kicked some Powahatan butt and that was the site of the victory), George Washington surveyed the site as a young lad and, according to legend, carved his initials, "GW" somewhere on the wall, approximately 23 feet up from the ground. Thomas Jefferson also owned the land, which he purchased from King George III in 1774. Pretty cool. Sometime in the 1800's it became a small resort town, and in recent years there have been some other "attractions" added to the area.

Now that you've had your brief history lesson, I'll proceed with some of the details of our trip to Natural Bridge.

We set out early and followed our "Google Maps" printout directions ... and managed to get a little lost. But getting lost was sort of a blessing in disguise, because we managed to find another gem of the area - Foamhenge. Yes folks, that's right. I said "Foamhenge". I'll get to that a little later on since we went back to visit there after our tour of Natural Bridge.

We found Natural Bridge about 10 minutes after getting lost and turning around. As I said before, it was kind of a yucky January day, so we were the only tourists to explore Natural Bridge that day. It was a little creepy, being so desolate, but kind of nice that we had the run of the place.

When we first parked in the parking lot, we were greeted at the front of the building by this fella:

A Cowboy Riding a Dinosaur

Very interesting indeed. We proceeded to enter the building, which we initially thought was closed, based on the completely empty parking lot, and purchased our tickets to enter. Entering basically consisted of walking down a very long flight of stairs, leaving the building, and then walking down another very long flight of outdoor stairs built into the side of a hill, taking a right turn past the snack bar and then, low and behold, directly in front of us was a really huge arch. I mean "Natural Bridge".

The Natural Bridge

Jesse Shooting The Natural Bridge

The Natural Bridge

Courtney at The Cedar Creek Trail

For the next two hours, we proceeded to wander beyond the Natural Bridge down the Cedar Creek Trail. We saw such things as (this next excerpt is taken from the Natural Bridge website):

The Cedar Creek Nature Trail begins with the walk down Cascade Creek and ends about a mile later at Lace Falls. Natural Bridge is included in the Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trails Peaks of Otter Loop. The trail includes many curiosities unique to Natural Bridge, especially the 1500 year old Arborvitae tree.

Some plants and flowers to watch for on the trail:
Bee Balm from June to September, Spring Beauty from March to May, Chicory from June to October, Lily of the Valley from May to July, Colombine from April to October, and many more, including cherry trees, amaranths, and squash flowers.

You might also see some wildlife:
55 mammal species and 70 species of reptile and amphibian make their home along Cedar Creek Trail. The best times for viewing wildlife are early morning and late evening. From the patio of the Cedar Creek Cafe you can usually see golden and rainbow trout. With luck you may be able to see deer, wild turkey, rabbits, beavers, and many types of birds.

The Cedar Creek Trail

The Cedar Creek

That concluded our excursion to Natural Bridge. It was still early when we finished our explorations, so we decided to revisit the gem that I had mentioned earlier, Foamhenge.

Foamhenge is an art installation created by Mark Cline. It is a full size replica of Stonehenge, made out of foam, which is then painted to look like stone. It also has a large sculpture of Merlin. If you ever make the trip to Natural Bridge, don't pass up seeing Foamhenge. Its one of those roadside attractions worth checking out.