30 Before 30: Go to Natural Bridge

 

Yesterday Paul and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary.  And can I just say, how in the world have I been married for 2 years already?!  It sounds cliche, but it really does feel like just yesterday that we were fist pumping to journey and chowing down on yummy donuts with our favorite people.

Anyway, Paul and I both had to work yesterday, but he has Wednesdays off now so I decided to take the day off to spend some quality time with my groom. Initially we had planned to go to the Peaks of Otter for lunch and wine tasting, but earlier today Paul brought up that we've been to the Peaks so we should go somewhere we haven't been before.  And that's when he suggested we go to Natural Bridge. And I was thrilled! I've lived no more than 2 hours from Natural Bridge my entire life and I've never been, but have wanted to go for a while, so it was an easy peak for my 30 Before 30 list.

Natural Bridge is a limestone rockface that was formed into a bridge after a cavern collapsed. It was once owned by Thomas Jefferson and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1998. You get to it by following a trail, but it's completely handicapped accessible, which is pretty awesome. 

Looking at it from far away is pretty cool, but close up it's just amazing.  It's a lot wider than I always thought it would be and it's really just overwhelming in a completely indescribable way.

If you follow the trail past the bridge there's a recreation of a Monacan village and, farther down,  a waterfall.  Or at least that's what they tell you.  But I'll get to that in a minute. 

Paul is 1/16 Monacan so he really wanted to go to the village.  Unfortunately, we were there at about 5:30 so all we saw were some structures, but no reinactors.  Paul took to making statements that began, "We Monacans..." and that's when we started to move on.

It was here that Paul made the bold declaration that, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, he would come to this spot to bathe.  He didn't really explain why.  I didn't have it in me to ask.

 

This was taken at the exact same spot as the last picture, but this is the view on the other side of the foot bridge. Paul asked if this was the waterfall we were going to.  I laughed when he asked that, but then about 1/2 mile later when we actually got to the waterfall we were going to, his question was a little less funny.  Because the massive Narnia-like waterfall that I was expecting was actually this...

Pretty?  Yes!  But a waterfall?  I'm going to say that's stretching things a bit.

The first half of our 2 hour walk was a little miserable.  It was super-muggy today ( especially for October), so even in shorts and a barely there cardigan,  I was burning up and had to throw my hair in a pony tail. On the way back it had cooled down a bit and there was a little bit of a breeze, which was nice. I think the perfect time to go would be a crisp 55 degree day after a lot of the leaves have changed colors.

We didn't venture to any of the museums since they were already closed, but I really enjoyed just winding through the woods with Paul for a couple hours without the distraction of phones, computers, or the tv.  Just us.