Grindstone Recreation Area

This was a really nice and quiet park, perfect for relaxing and getting away from everything. Really getting away! It has a cute wading pool for the kiddos, a creek to play in and a nice playground. The camp hosts are really friendly and go out of their way to help you with things if needed.

This park is truly a park in the middle of nowhere. Internet and cell reception was about 15 to 20 minutes away at an overlook with a beautiful view. The nearest town is about 45 minutes and there is nothing there but an old gas station, a questionable pizza place and cell service. We ordered a cell booster, had it delivered and we still don’t have service here. 

While staying at this park I was looking through some spiral notebooks that we had written in before we left home. It had each state listed and things that we wanted to see while in that state. So, I looked up Virginia, and there was a city, named Damascus, that was about an hour away. It is the most beautiful city for hiking and biking trails. So, we decided that we would go Tuesday morning. 

By this time, my Hollywood image of things makes my mind skewed or something. I pictured this beautiful city, with older but well-kept buildings, diners to eat at, flowers, trails, bridges, rivers and such all with the picturesque mountains in the background. Just move me to Hollywood now! We got there and there are construction crews everywhere, down to one lane roads, no biking trails except off road ones that did go along a very pretty river. No parking for our truck to access the trail, not that we would have walked on in since there were only bikes on it. There was not a place to eat except for a little diner that didn’t have room for 6 people. To say I was a little disappointed was an understatement. I talked Kevin into going an hour away so we could get lunch and have a nice afternoon. Instead we not only drove an hour to the city, we drove another 30 minutes to get to a Walmart to grab sandwiches, so we could drive another 40 minutes to the scenic overlook to have lunch! It was a very good lunch though, with a beautiful view and we got to sit in the shade under the boards. 

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful since we only drove back and forth 2 times a day for internet and work. We got to spend more one on one time with the kids, we got to play in the little creek and wading pool and took the kids to the playground. We also got to read books and spend quiet time in the evenings having tea and relaxing by the fire. We had a really nice week here and would absolutely come back if we were planning on taking a few days off of work.