OK, now you're in the Washington, Virginia forum. I believe in addition to posting in Virginia, you also want to post here tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g28969-i39-Distric… in the Washington DC forum. Washington, Virginia is about 70 miles from Washington, DC.

If you like antiques, a drive down Route 11 which runs parallel to 81 (for the most part) will take you through a lot of quaint small towns. This is easy to do on the way down or up-you can return Skyline drive or vise versa and get the best of mountain and valley.

You may also want to consider a driving through Shenandoah National Park (less than 2 hours from Washington D.C.) on Skyline Drive. And you may want to consider spending a night or two at either Big Meadows Lodge or Skyland Resort (both of which are in the Park). I would recommend Big Meadows at this point in time as they have renovated their rooms (maybe Skyland will do so for next season). You are likely to see plenty of deer in the park and maybe a black bear or two. We saw four of them this past summer. If you are interested in battlefields of the War Between the States, there are a number of them within an easy drive of D.C.

You can go to www.nps.gov/shen/ to obtain more information about Shenandoah NP.