Natural Bridge State Park, Virginia

Tuesday, May 21

We cleaned up the house, transferred all that we needed to the motorhome and left this morning around 9:30 headed for Ohio.  We had decided to make today an easy one and picked a state park in Virginia, which was only a 3-4 hour drive, as a destination for tonight.  I had never heard of Natural Tunnel State Park, but we have been very pleased with a very nice campground and very interesting geology.

Natural Tunnel State Park is a Virginia State Park centered around a Natural Tunnel, a massive naturally formed cave that is so large it is used as a railroad tunnel. It is located in the Appalachian Mountains near Duffield.

The Natural tunnel, which is up to 200 feet wide and 80 feet high, began to form more than a million years ago when groundwater bearing carbonic acid percolated through crevices and slowly dissolved limestone. A small underground river, which is now called Stock Creek, went underground and it continued to erode the tunnel over many millennia.

The walls of the tunnel show evidence of prehistoric life. Many fossils have been found in the creek bed and in the tunnel walls.

The tunnel passes through Purchase Ridge, which is made of limestone.

Although Natural Tunnel State Park was created in 1967 and opened to the public in 1971, the natural tunnel has been a Virginian tourist attraction for more than a century; Daniel Boone is believed to have been the first European to see it in the 18th century. The 41st United States Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan dubbed it the "Eighth Wonder of the World".

This was taken from an overlook above the tunnel as a train starts through the tunnel

A railroad was constructed through the natural tunnel in 1893. The first train, operated by the Virginia & Southwestern Railway Company, passed through the following year. In 1899, the Natural tunnel was purchased by the Tennessee & Carolina Iron and Steel Company. The railway originally carried passenger trains; today, the line is still open but now run by Norfolk Southern and CSX and is only used to transport coal.

It is known that a Cherokee maiden and a Shawnee brave who had been forbidden to marry by their respective tribes, jumped to their deaths from the highest pinnacle above the Natural Tunnel. The place is now known as Lover's Leap.

The mountain rhododendron are beginning to bloom

Tonight we are staying in Lover's Leap Campground.  For the first time in a long time, we've had to cut the air conditioning on.  It's in the 80's and we are parked in the sun, so the motorhome is rather warm.