I have always heard about the beauty of Skyline Drive and have always wanted to see it for myself. I have had trouble finding people to go with me, because there are just so many other places to go. I finally convinced my family to go just a couple weekends ago, and although it was fun, it was simply overrun with tourists. Don't get me wrong; the drive was totally worth it. The scenery was beautiful, and at just about every turn you could see deer off in the woods. We drove the entire 105 miles in one day and at one point even ran into what we think was a "bear jam," where the entire road turned into four lanes of parking. People were pulled off on both sides of the road, and others just left their car running in the middle of the road and got out to see what was going on. I still have no idea, but I can't imagine anything besides a bear that could cause such a commotion.
The highlight of my trip on Skyline Drive was fairly early in the morning, as we were driving north and stopping at a majority of pull-offs. I didn't have my camera out and was just enjoying the scene. My family was clicking away, taking pictures of the valley, below when I heard what I thought sounded an awful lot like a wolf howl. I dismissed it as just a dog, until I heard it get answered by many others across the valley. The four of us looked at each other in bewilderment, all of us asking the same question. Did we just hear what I think we just heard? We sat and listened to the wolves heralding the new day for a bit before we moved on. To me, even though I didn't get to see a wolf in the wild, I did get to hear them, and that was truly the highlight of my trip.