Fall Getaway to Eagle Trace at Massanutten

Our time in Masanutten was coming to an end, so we landed at this particular Days Inn near the airport. It was a very nice stop. We paid about $63.99 for the night, and the accomodation package came with a Continental breakfast and two Queen-size beds. This was actually the place where one of our twin girls stood up for the very first time.

A wonderful respite on our journey home!

Best Things Nearby:
Not too far away from our unit, there was a great little playground for our girls, who were about 18 months old at this time, and they enjoyed the swings, the see-saw, and the pool, as well as the outside area. There were other sights nearby as well, not too far from the resort, where you could take advantage of steam rooms, sauna, massage services, gymnasium, racquetball courts, golf courses, hiking, mountain biking, fishing, and children's programs.

Best Things About the Resort:
The quiet was the best thing, and we were settled at our unit about 5-10 miles away from the check-in spot, giving us ample opportunity for some peace, and it was a pastoral surrounding, with lush greenery all around.

Resort Experience:
A quiet, serene, relaxing spot for moments of reflection and/or activity, you can pretty much spend your entire week's vacation right on the grounds of this wonderful resort. In addition, their plans for the future include expanding their services to include one of the largest water slides and indoor pools on the East Coast, and have their resort be self-contained, in that every kind of conceivable amenity will be offered for the pleasure of its clientele. Not only did we like our stay, but we bought one of their brand-new units, which are truly phenomenal in appearance.

One of the most interesting aspects of this stay is to discover that they have their own security that patrols the resort, to include speed limitations, and folks who actually live in this Massanutten community. A truly creative concept.

• Unit Type: 2 Bedroom
• Activities: Excellent
• Amenities: Excellent
• Unit Satisfaction: Excellent
• Family Friendliness: Excellent
• Service: Excellent

Touted as "the best bookstore on the East Coast," by U.S. Airways’ Attaché Magazine, we were fortunate enough to catch the fifth appearance of this book fair while we were on vacation. This fifth appearance went from October 4th through the 19th, and it was one of six for the year 2003, with the last from November 28th to December 14th.

At a glance, you walk into what appears to be a spacious barn on a farm, to what turns into two climate-controlled buildings, totaling over 25,000 square feet. There are over 500,000 new books in over 40 different categories, anywhere from history, cooking, gardening, reference, religion and philosophy, science, nature, music, computers, and much more. A virtual smorgasbord for the lover of books.

The stock usually changes from one Book Fair to the next, so there's always something new to find, all at a savings of 60% to 90% below publishers' retail prices. And that's not just hype. It's real fact!!

They have a website - www.gvbookfair.com - just in the event the reader is going to be in the area and wants to know the dates for 2004. We'd really like to go back, and we recently had the chance, but we missed it by a couple of days.

This is a truly unique shopping experience!!

Just outside the "check-in" area of Massanutten, there is this great playground which is cordoned off with a fence from the rest of the resort activities. It offers parking right outside of the playground, and the Woodstone Meadow area is adjacent to the playground.

There are swings, slides (tubal and other), monkey bars, bouncy cars and other interesting outdoor activities for the youngsters, as well as an "up and down" obstacle course for the children who are a little older. The playground has a foundation of green turf, which is sort of spongy, but there is the absence of dirt and rocks, which all of us parents appreciate.

A really nice, relaxing time!!

This was a wonderful day out for the family. The museum, geared to ages 1-10 and their families, offers its visitors many hands-on activities. Some of the highlights included an art studio (our girls were a little too young for this); a reconstructed 18th-century pioneer log cabin; a take-apart table, which enables the young ones to see how things work; a working beehive, which was truly remarkable; and a computer laboratory.

There were other areas like the Rainforest Hall, where you could listen to the sounds of animals in the rainforest, and the magical measurement history tour, complete with measuring devices for your children, and mirrors for them to see themselves in.

A great entertaining day, and it helped relax the girls greatly!!!

This park is an 11-acre walk-through zoo, and displays living plants and animals from five regions of North America. We saw animals such as the racing roadrunners, alligators, eagles, bison, wolves, prairie dogs, ravens, and others.

The five regions were The Grassy Waters; The Cactus Community; The Eastern Woodlands; The Big Sky Country; and The North Woods. There were over 200 animals of 75 species that were displayed in their naturalistic habitats, and while we were there, ZooAmerica was celebrating its 25th anniversary and the debut of a Canadian Lynx exhibit.

This was a very interesting area, not too far from Hershey Park, and we were all impressed at the friendliness of the staff and their willingness to show us around. And as was stated earlier, because we were there on an "off season," we pretty much had the park to ourselves, which was mighty relaxing.

This was a quaint little shop not to far from the Discovery Museum, and it was a nice stop to unwind and relax a little before either having lunch or heading back on the highway. The service was nice, as was the proprietor, and he was very friendly towards us all.

We found a couple of nice additions to our children's library, and their policy is to buy and sell fine used books.

The store is situated in the Downtown Mall area, and it's a really nice stop if you're bookhounds like we are. Even if you like to look, there is no pressure to buy anything, and you could probably even make a friend, too.

This is a small little strip mall, with stores such as Belk, JC Penney, and Peebles, among others. It's an interesting area if you're interested in just resting or even browsing in the stores.

We visited this store a couple of times while we were in the area, and it offered many bargains as well as "top of the line" Christian reading. There was also a wide variety of music (cassette and CD) to choose from, as well as friendly service. There was also an area for the kids, with a TV and ongoing videos to entertain them while the parents shopped, if that's what they desired. It was a rather large store, and we found ourselves spending quite a bit of time, not realizing how the time had passed as we just browsed.

A nice place to spend an afternoon.

This was a little disappointing to us, and more importantly, to my wife, who was hoping for something a little more significant than just a statue in the middle of the city.

This statue, however, honored the Louisiana Purchase explorers - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and their American Indian guide, Sacajawea. If you drove by it, you would've missed it, and we were happy to see it, even for a few minutes.

This was one of those "freebie" amenities at Massanutten, and we took advantage of this for our twin girls, who were about 18 months old at the time.

From 9:15 AM to 10:00 AM, for children ages 6 months to 3 years old, we had a blast with Gwen, our instructor, at what was called "LeClub."

The class was really nice, and it was situated in a little warm pool, adjacent to the indoor pool. The site was clean, with many folks taking advantage of the lack of crowds to enjoy swimming.

Our girls loved it, and Gwen had brought her toys for the children, and what made things even better, our two girls happened to be the only children at the class, so they got the red-carpet treatment. That was super!!!

This was more or less an "introduction" of sorts to Hershey, and it didn't cost us anything.

What we basically did was go the Visitor's Center and be greeted by the Hershey's characters, and suddenly we were ushered into the delightful world of attractions, foods, and other things devoted to chocolate. Then we took the free Chocolate-Making Tour Ride, which was just right for my wife and 18-month-old twin girls. It was a moderate ride, and very relaxing, and following a short history, we were given a free sample of chocolate.

We looked around the gift shops and viewed many of the attractions; however, we decided that in a few years time, we'd return and take advantage of the other really exciting parts of this site when the girls were a little older to appreciate it. It was a lot of fun, though, and the place was packed!

For a most unique experience, we again wandered on a side trip, and found this great Indian Trail Road on Rte 620 in Keezletown, VA.

There was a feeling of "otherness" as we travelled, and the sights and sound was something out of another era. It was quiet, serene, and very pastoral, and the sights of the old farmhouses, some of which had fallen into disrepair, was rather quaint than sad. A railroad track shadowed us along this road, and as we travelled, we saw the cows and horses on the farmhills around us, until we ended our journey, suddenly, and found ourselves within minutes from US 33 and civilization.

This was a breath of fresh air and a surprising twist to an otherwise uneventful afternoon ride.

One of the more interesting adventures we took was when we decided to take an afternoon trip while we were in Middletown, PA. We figured we take a couple hours out of our day and head down Rte 230. This area has also been called Pennsylvania Dutch Country, and along the way, we traveled through the towns of Highspire, Middletown, Mt. Joy, and Elizabethtown. There is a lot of history to these places, and one of the interesting features of a trip like this was to note the disparity between the highway and the countryside, as it was evident that the Amish farms were very well placed along the way, albeit at a distance and separated from the rest of the area.

We traveled into Lancaster on this jaunt, and eventually passed through the town called "Bird in Hand," a town which took its name from a tavern sign that pictured a bird resting in a hand. And while we were there, we also went into the "Old Village Store" on SR 340, and it has remained the same as it was in 1890, with checkerboards and pot-bellied stoves. It's one of the oldest in the country.

It's amazing what one can discover on the "out of the way" spots when vacationing.