When Mother Nature created the spectacular phenomenon of Natural Bridge in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, she orchestrated it only with swiftly flowing water of Cedar Creek, limestone erosion and the passage of time. The iconic arch, reaching more than 20 stories high, cuts a stone bridge through the deep forests of Rockbridge County. It is pretty enough that when Thomas Jefferson first saw it in 1767, he was so spellbound that seven years later he bought it from the King of England for just 20 shillings.
No one knows the age of Natural Bridge. Some say it was formed hundreds of thousands of years ago, while others say millions, but it’s safe to say it happened a long, long time ago. Yet only in 2016 was it designated a Virginia state park. Natural Bridge, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, also features more than six miles of hiking trails, a visitor center, living history programs and Lace Falls, a 30-foot cascading waterfall also formed by Cedar Creek.
I went to Natural Bridge as a side trip from Lexington, the county seat, where I had come for work, and then chose to stay for a couple of days. It’s a small Blue Ridge mountain town at heart, although others would call it a college town in that it’s anchored by Virginia Military Institute, the nation’s first state-sponsored military college, and Washington and Lee University. After seeing it myself, I’m more inclined to call it a cliché town, in that I can accurately use plenty of clichés to describe it, among them charming, quaint and postcard-pretty.
