We work-weary urbanites found a way to escape to the woods during the pandemic. Yellow birch trees towered over us and ferns feathered the ground along the Upper Jungle Trail at Mountain Lake Lodge in southwest Virginia. Even in the light rain, 3-year-old James happily ran along the grass path, saying “Wow!” and Charlotte, 21 months, joyfully stomped in the puddles. We caught sight of a buck prancing through a not-too-distant clearing. No cars and no people marred our commune with nature.
After months of treading the same miles-long routes through our Washington, D.C., neighborhood, my family—husband, daughter, son-in-law, their two toddlers, and I—headed for the hills, specifically Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, in search of a socially distanced, safe way to rejuvenate.
For us that meant booking a stand-alone, multiple-bedroom cabin equipped with a kitchen on acres of land near hiking trails and within driving distance of home. The lodging had to be part of a hotel because we required both the assurance of accommodations scrubbed to the Centers for Disease Control standards and an onsite restaurant for takeout dinners. (For us, cooking all of our meals wasn’t a vacation.) Since our kennel closed temporarily, we also required a dog-friendly property. A rental home on Mountain Lake Lodge’s Blueberry Ridge, about two miles from the hotel’s central area, fit our requirements wonderfully.
