07/13/2019 - 07/14/2019 - Mountain Country Summer Tour, Shenandoah, VA

[rhop101]

*7/13-7/14

Ever driven up into the Shenandoahs for some fun driving and been bummed about the 3 hour drive back to DC? Now you don't have to be! Join us for an extended weekend of touring up into the Shenandoah Mountains! The tour will start from the Southwest side of Frederick and end around Manassas at the end of Day 2. We will stop for lunch at Baby Blues BBQ before heading to Seneca Rocks on Day 1. From there, we weave east to Harrisonburg for the night, staying at the local Fairfield Inn. On Day 2, we'll head northeast over the last ranges of the Shenandoahs and stop at Lurray Caverns and their Auto Museum around lunch time before heading toward Manassas. All in all you get about 10 hours of touring.

We'll start meeting for the Tour around 8:30 and then depart just after 9am. Because of the capacity of Baby Blue's I'm limiting the tour to 30 people and however many cars that works out to be. Since it's a 2 day tour the cost will be $15 per car. I will initially open up the tour as a 2 day tour, but if there are any leftover spots 2 weeks before the tour, I'll open it up to folks who are interested in running just Day 1 of the tour for the standard $10 per car.

For the Fairfield Inn Saturday night, a room block has been setup with 20 rooms at a price of $109 for the night. A Mix of Single King and Dual Queen rooms are available. A link to get a room in the block is provided via Email Blaster once you register. The $109 rate will be available through June 22nd after which the rooms will go back into the general pool and still be available at a slightly higher rate. On Day 2 we'll regroup around 9am and head out around 9:30am, this may change depending on the tour time I can get for Lurray if we sign up as a group.

Let me know if you have any feedback on this as this is my first time planning a 2 day tour. More details to follow. If you cancel before the close of registration you will be refunded.

Register here.

[rhop101]

Hi All,

At the moment its looking like this tour is shaping up to be a 1 day tour up to an optional overnight.

Due to resource constraints I was thinking for this tour we would follow a route similar to prior year Spring Tours out to Seneca Rocks area. Basic itinerary would be meeting 8:30 at Mt Zion Rd Park and Ride off Rt-340 and departing at 9. With a rest stop we would get to our lunch stop around 12 and then once lunch finished up we would finish the drive out to Seneca Rocks and arrive around 3pm. Then folks could head home after a group picture.

Now here's the optional overnight part. Seneca Rocks has a set of campgrounds just down the road from the main lot of the park and there are still plenty of spots. So we could camp out there the night break camp in the morning and then enjoy some more fun roads mid day Sunday before we turned for home. We could even go out for some more driving to get dinner Saturday night for those that stay.

I'll do a little research about hotels in the area, but with this Tour a month and a half away and it being the middle of summer you'd think rooms would be hard to come by but I haven't tried to check yet.

There really are a lot of nice roads out there once you get out there. I may charge an extra $10 for the 2nd day of touring and $3pp for the camping if we make food considerations that would go up.

I'd still probably do the overnight even if it only ends up being a couple cars. The only bummer about the camping sites is that in theory the largest sites only allow 4 cars for 12ppl, but maybe we can park others by the main building idk. The campground appears to have paved roads in the areas we are traveling.

Looking for Feedback from folks about the tour and the possibility of it being an Overnight trip and camping vs a hotel.

[rhop101]

Looks like this will work out to be a 2 day tour if you do the whole thing! We will end the tour Saturday evening in Harrisonburg. This will give people options to leave the tour and not have too far of a drive back to DC. Harrisonburg is 2-2.5 hours outside of DC. Seneca Rocks is 3 hours if you need to break off mid afternoon.

Expect Registration to open this weekend sometime. I will be doing some route testing over the weekend. More details to follow!

[rhop101]

Hi All,

The tour will run from Saturday the 13th through Sunday the 14th. I will update MSR shortly and open registration for 2 day registration. The hotel I am planning around in Harrisonburg is the Fairfield Marriott mainly because I've had mostly good experiences at Marriotts and the room price is reasonable at $109 a night. I'd expect folks to congregate at least partially for a dinner outing, but its really every man for themselves. I'll see if I can set something up local and update the event description above.

Thanks!

[rhop101]

Registration is now open!

[rhop101]

Looks like Dinner Saturday will be at the Edelweiss Restaurant in Staunton! Just need to call the restaurant and confirm we can get a reservation for that night before I update MSR and the top level posting here

[rhop101]

Hi All,

The hotel rate will go up to full price on June 22nd. So register soon and you'll save $20 on the Hotel!

Regards,

Robert Hopkins

[rhop101]

Hi All,

Single Day registration is now open for this Tour! It'll be up to you how far you'll go. You can turn around at Seneca Rocks, but the fun really starts after that. I wouldn't want to miss Route 250! There will be the option to Head back to DC when we reach Stauton or you can join us for Dinner and head back after 8:30 or 9pm. Expect Dinner to be around 7pm. Lunch will be earlier than last year's Spring Tour around 12:30 or so. For Folks coming up from Virginia you can always meet us at the first Rest Stop. This will save you 30-40 minutes in the morning and the best roads are really still to come. Let me know if this is something many folks are interested in.

[rhop101]

Hi All,

Registration is technically closed, but I should be up fairly early tomorrow so if you decide to come last minute for the 1 day tour just shoot me an email and show up at the tour start and we’ll get you setup there are plenty of spots left.