Only you can prevent forest fires

For the past 5 days I have been in sunny Virginia gearing up to complete the first step in my goal to visit all of the national parks. I went to Shenandoah National Park on the way to my friend Amanda's house. It wasn't going to be an epic day of hiking. We were just going to be seeing some sights and enjoying skyline drive on our way to Lynchburg VA, but that didn't matter to me. It was my first National Park and that was all that mattered. 

After 5 hours of driving we entered the park and I got really excited. I had Amanda pull over and we snapped a few pictures in front of the welcome sign (I figured its a good habit to get into as I pursue this goal). And then we proceeded to the friendly ranger station. 

We pulled up, and the good Ranger said, "I'm sorry, but this portion of Skyline Drive and Shenandoah National Park is closed right now due to a forest fire"

We just blinked at him for a few moments. WHAT? Thats right folks. So close but so far away. Denied entrance while I could almost smell the trails. 

As we sulkily turned the car around and took the road basically parallel to the park we could see (and smell) the smoke from the fire. It was kind of crazy to drive through. We looked it up later, this fire has burned over 2000 acres of land in Shenandoah. While I was sad to not be able to check off my first park, I was able to keep things in perspective and laugh about my situation. After all, in the end the memories made while achieving such a goal as this are more important than the end result, so what better way to kick the whole adventure off than with a crazy adventure?