Big Meadow

Big Meadow is definitely my favorite part of Shenandoah… We visited it a lot. We walked around our first morning, Ben did a Jr. Ranger program there, and we went on a ranger-led hike.

It is a perfect place to take kids - wildlife everywhere you look. Deer, birds, bugs, butterflies, frogs, flowers. Deer-paths criss-cross the meadow so you can wander around aimlessly in all directions – taking all pressure off of the need to reach a destination. Perfect for Nikki because he can take the lead.

Our coolest Big Meadow discovery was on our first morning – in the swampy area in the middle we found some bones. We found the pelvis, femur, and the spine of some rather large animal (much bigger than a rabbit) but we couldn’t figure out what it was. On our way back up to visitor center we ran into Ranger Liz and told her where to find the skeleton. Ben and I saw her later the same day at the Jr. Ranger Hike. After the hike she told us it was the bones of a baby deer and that a bobcat had probably killed it!