Douthat

It shouldn't come as a surprise to any of our regular followers that I am a big fan of the Virginia State Parks. Yes, yes... we're the NC Slaviks. And while the NC State Parks are very lovely, they don't have much in the way of cabins. We aren't able to do tent camping because of our need for Will's feeding pump power, so to get into the outdoors, we like to stay in cabins.

In the spring and fall, I plan several weekends to different Virginia State Parks. There are about 35 of them, and so far, we've been to 4. We visited our 5th park this past weekend - Douthat State Park in Millboro. Very close to West Virginia, with a lovely view of the Blue Ridge.

Douthat is the original VA State Park, and like Hungry Mother, built by the Civil Conservation Corps in the mid-1930s. Lots of trails, a restaurant, 38 cabins, a lake, boats... I've been looking forward to going since we drove by on our way back from Snowshoe Mountain in January!

We arrived on Friday, settled in and enjoyed a campfire. Saturday we woke up, ate a nice breakfast and hit the trails. There was an "extreme" trail running race in the park that day (one of the races was 40 miles long and had an elevation change of more than 2000 feet in the first 4 miles), so we dodged runners on one of our passes around the lake. After lunch, the rains came so we spent the afternoon reading books, playing with toys and sitting in the rocking chairs under the covered porch. So relaxing... and amazingly, no one once asked for a TV. I was pretty happy about that. We enjoyed another campfire that evening, and of course, made s'mores. Here are some pics from our Saturday.

I think Otis might have been the most tired Slavik by the end of the day. The cabins are pet friendly, and he is such a happy active boy when we go to one of the parks!