Shenandoah was interesting and the leaves were pretty, but not nearly the show that New Hampshire and the rest of New England put on. Drake really summed up the autumn on the Blue Ridge: "It looks like bad shag carpeting from the '70's." See what he means -
One of the hallmarks of the Virginia autumn in the wild is the predominance of yellows and rust colors. That's due to the yellow poplars and the elms. There's also a lot of different oaks which tend to be rusty or just outright brown. The most fun in Shenandoah was the chilly morning we took a hike to the summit of Stony Mountain and it snowed on us! OK, it was just flurries, but it was constant.
Another unlooked for enjoyment came from a spur of the moment decision to drive over to Luray, Virginia, the Heart of the Shenandoah Valley, to see the Luray Caverns. Now, there are caves and there are caves. Some you seem to be just circling their one real nice stalagmite or column, and others like Carlsbad are one outstanding rock formation after another. Well, the Luray Caverns, discovered in 1878, falls much closer to the Carlsbad standard. In point of fact, these are the best caverns I've seen since Carlsbad. People have been touring these caves since the 1880's and there's a whole little attraction complex surrounding the caverns now. They have so many nifty formations that the tour takes more than an hour. My favorite part was the 2500 square foot lake which was only about two feet deep, but when lighted shows an exact reflection of the stalactites above it.
My favorite formation was the 'waterfall'. These are pretty rare and only grow at the rate of about one inch every 130 years. They are originally falling water. Apparently, it takes longer to turn moving water into stone.
The Luray Caverns Attraction Complex had restaurants, a fudge shop, a toy store, an English garden maze, and an antique car museum. Like caves, car museums can be spectacular or pretty disappointing. This one was crammed with some really vintage models including Rudolph Valentino's 1925 Rolls Royce, painted to look like it was covered in alligator skin, an actual carriage from the 1720's, and a wagon actually used to ferry railroad passengers to the Luray Caverns. They also had one of the earliest examples of a 'horseless carriage'. Not surprisingly, these nascent cars DID look like carriages without horses. That example above of an early car is an 1892 Benz. My favorite car was the 1930 Cord - mainly because of the color. According to a mechanic we chatted with, every car in the museum was in complete running order. You could start them up, and drive them out the doors.
As we drove back into Richmond, it became obvious that the leaves had really gotten tuned up in our absence. Every view all over town seemed to be in technicolor.
There is some variety of planted maple which are like flames. Here they are in the parking lot of my local library in Henrico, Virgina. All over town looks like this. Today, I was eating at a Ruby Tuesday and looked out the window to discover there's a variety of crepe myrtle here whose leaves turns flame red in the fall. There was an entire line of them which were sporting the hot pink flowers when we got here and now their flowers are gone but their leaves are the exact color of a red-orange Crayon. Here's a representative picture of the mixed forest that is Richmond's landscape. We've joked that the tree trimmers and leave rakers can really make more than a decent living here. Drake has been so thankful he doesn't own a house here with the attendant 'leaf pick up and disposal' problems.
My favorite formation was the 'waterfall'. These are pretty rare and only grow at the rate of about one inch every 130 years. They are originally falling water. Apparently, it takes longer to turn moving water into stone. 
The Luray Caverns Attraction Complex had restaurants, a fudge shop, a toy store, an English garden maze, and an antique car museum. Like caves, car museums can be spectacular or pretty disappointing. This one was crammed with some really vintage models including Rudolph Valentino's 1925 Rolls Royce, painted to look like it was covered in alligator skin, an actual carriage from the 1720's, and a wagon actually used to ferry railroad passengers to the Luray Caverns. They also had one of the earliest examples of a 'horseless carriage'. Not surprisingly, these nascent cars DID look like carriages without horses. That example above of an early car is an 1892 Benz. My favorite car was the 1930 Cord - mainly because of the color. According to a mechanic we chatted with, every car in the museum was in complete running order. You could start them up, and drive them out the doors. 
As we drove back into Richmond, it became obvious that the leaves had really gotten tuned up in our absence. Every view all over town seemed to be in technicolor.
We decided to take advantage of what will probably be the last day of summer (temp was 77 degrees) and check out autumn at Pocohontas State Park, the largest in Virginia, and only about an hour south of Richmond. We settled on doing a small hike around Beaver Lake, which in Texas we would have named Beaver POND. The only wild life we saw were squirrels, but as small as the alleged lake was, there were fishermen in evidence (big mouth bass and a few pike according to one we met on the trail). It was a pretty spot.
Overall, I have to say that the autumn around Richmond has been gorgeous much prettier thanks to the planted trees than the Blue Ridge. According to locals I've met, the tree color here is rated as a 'down year'. I've heard at least a couple of times, "It was much prettier last year." All I can say is they shouldn't look this gift horse in the mouth. Lots and lots of places would love to have these beautiful trees.
If you want to see the rest of the Shenandoah Valley/Blue Ridge pictures, here they are:
