Route Down

Statehouse #37. That stained-glass dome at the Indiana Statehouse might be the prettiest we’ve stood under yet. Beautiful building, with a past heavier than most know about Take a look.

Glad we came.

This is our 36th state capitol! A Beaux-Arts stunner that opened in 1910, with a colonnaded façade, grand staircase, and massive dome.

When we rolled through, that dome was buried in scaffolding. The Capitol is getting its first major renovation in 70 years, a nearly $300 million overhaul rebuilding the dome and modernizing the whole place. That steel cage swallowing the top? A 15-level rig just for the dome work.

They gutted it so deep the lawmakers moved out to a temporary building nearby. Reopening is targeted for 2029, maybe later. So we caught this one mid-transformation, a real before shot of a 115-year-old landmark getting brought back to life.

New River Gorge National Park and Preserve is the one that finishes the lower 48 for us!

Redesignated in 2020 as America’s 63rd national park, and what a way to close out the list. You can harness up and walk the steel catwalk on the underside of the bridge
, 851 feet above the gorge, for a view almost nobody gets from the overlook.

And the New River itself is the real headliner: one of the oldest rivers in North America, quietly carving this canyon for millions of years.

Virginia State Capitol — Richmond, VA — Statehouse, Number 35

Thomas Jefferson designed this one himself, modeling it on the Maison Carrée, a Roman temple in Nîmes, France. When it went up in the 1780s it was the first public building in the country built in that Roman-revival style, the blueprint for the “temple of democracy” look that spread to capitols and courthouses nationwide. It’s still the working home of the Virginia General Assembly, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, dating back to 1619.

But the centerpiece is inside. Standing in the rotunda is Jean-Antoine Houdon’s marble statue of George Washington, and it’s the real thing, not a copy. Houdon traveled to Mount Vernon in 1785 and took a plaster life mask and exact measurements of Washington while he was still alive, which makes this the only full-length statue of him ever sculpted from life. Carved from Carrara marble and unveiled in 1796, it’s regarded as the most accurate likeness of Washington in existence. It’s so accurate that more than 30 copies were cast from it and scattered to other capitols, including the one in the U.S. Capitol rotunda. A contemporary who knew Washington said nothing in stone could be more perfect. The original has stood here for over 200 years, and it’s effectively priceless. The Commonwealth has never put a number on it, and never would.

North Carolina State Capitol | 34th. 🏛️

Finished in 1840 and barely touched since: Greek Revival stone, a copper dome, and for its first ~50 years the whole state government under one roof. One of the best-preserved statehouses in the country. You seeit the moment you walk in and look straight up. 👆

And that banner? In case anyone was wondering… the Carolina Hurricanes are your 2026 Stanley Cup Champions. 🏒 Second cup in franchise history, first since 2006, and Raleigh draped it right down the front and sidesl of the Capitol.

34 down. 🇺🇸

Dark Hollow Falls is Shenandoah’s most accessible waterfall and probably its most popular. The trailhead sits right off Skyline Drive at mile 50.7, and the loop runs about 1.4 miles round trip, so an hour is a natural pace with time to actually stop and look. The trail drops quickly alongside Hogcamp Branch, working down through log steps and a couple of switchbacks until the 70-foot falls open up in a series of cascades spilling over ancient greenstone rock.

The catch is the way back. Everything you cruised down on the way in, you climb back out, roughly 440 feet of gain packed into three quarters of a mile, which is exactly why the return feels tougher than the trip down. There are plenty of rocks to catch your breath on if you need them. Short hike, nice payoff.

Our 57th National Park, Shenandoah National Park !!

Second stop on our “last-three-in-the-lower-48 tour”. The North Entrance dropped us straight into fog rolling over the Blue Ridge. Skyline Drive doesn’t waste any time showing off.

100 miles of ridgeline, and we drove it all! One of the East Coast’s last big wilderness stretches.