Shenandoah

I have a love / hate relationship with the Shenandoah National Park.
The wildlife in the park isn't so wild.  The AT crosses Skyline Drive 24 times in the park!  I could hear traffic most of the day.  I was often within 0.1 mile of Skyline Drive.  The trail is a lot more populated in the park with day / section hikers. The trail itself was poorly maintained in some sections; so bad that I was bushwhacking for a short stretch. The spur and circuit trails were often more maintained and lead into more "wilderness-y" areas...  Also, there's fewer views on the AT than on Skyline Drive!  That's just wrong...
However, I saw my first rattlesnake and five black bears in Shenandoah!  I also saw tons of deer-- fawns and bucks in the velvet.  Surprisingly, Shenandoah is a wildlife mecca!  I also got to meet some really nice new people due to my newly slowed pace.  I wanted a change from hiking around the same people day in and day out.  For instance, Pigeon was doing trail magic for her friends Skid and Flame and I saw her a total of three times in the park.  I took my time, engaging her in conversation and waiting around to see what other hikers would take the short side trail to the parking lot where she was set up.  She reminded me of my love for Alaska with her "Alaska Makes Me Happy" t-shirt.  Pigeon told me of her time spent in Alaska as a nature guide of sorts and her cross-country drive from DC.  This woman rocks.
Aside from the wildlife and new people, I got to hike stretches of the AT that I had already done (no, I wasn't going to skip them!).  For me, re-hiking sections of trail already completed was a cool experience.  I tried to pinpoint places where I had stopped to pick and eat apples from the apple trees near Compton Peak.  It was difficult to pinpoint these places because of the overgrown summer vegetation and some places were scorched due to a wildfire in March.  But I think I nailed it...
Finally, the end of Shenandoah means that the end of Virginia is right around the corner!  I've been in this state for almost 40 days and over 500 miles!  On the whole, Virginia had some gorgeous scenery and diverse scenery at that. I walked through meadows, blossoming mountain laurel tunnels, over countless fence stiles and stream crossings, and boulder scrambles.  Virginia was nice and didn't really get old but I'm glad to be moving on to new territory!