At the end of the Blue Ridge Parkway sits Shenandoah National Park, a glorious stretch of forest and also a great place for wildlife viewing. We were incredibly lucky and stopped literally right across the road from a grazing black bear. Now before you think us entirely dumb my foot was on the accelerator the whole time and we didn't dare get out of the car. However the people behind us did. With their sweet looking faces and intent gaze solely on eating plants it can be easy to mistake the bears as tame. We didn't stick around to see if that would change with stupid tourists approaching them.
Already a full day we arrived at Harper's Ferry with only a precious 45 minutes to see the famous site. Home to a major munitions supply it is best known for a raid that catapulted the nation into war.
John Brown was a white man bent on giving all persons their freedom and doing so at any means necessary. He gathered a group of men together who stormed the munitions, took hostages and engaged in an intense siege which finally came to a painful and bloody end with most of his men killed then, himself and the few remaining later hanged.
Though the raid was deemed a failure it might have actually been part of a master plan. John Brown talked often about being willing to give his life for the cause and at a time when slave holders were terrified of a slave rebellion it was the final straw (that and Lincoln being elected) setting most of the Confederate states into succession and war.
Shenandoah National Park
Harper's Ferry
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