Dirty Dancing at Mountain Lake

We traveled to Mountain Lake Hotel on Friday to participate in their Dirty Dancing weekend. Mountain Lake Hotel is one of the locations where the hit movie Dirty Dancing was filmed 20 years ago. The hotel is located in southwestern Virginia just outside of Blacksburg. It's kind of rustic; my cellphone didn't even work and there was no TV in the room. I did find the alarm clock, though. It took about 6 hours of driving to get there. Late in the afternoon there was a terrific thunderstorm. Lots of lightning and loads of rain. We were glad we were staying in the hotel proper and not one of the cabins. We would have gotten soaked going to dinner. We had one of those package deals where the price included the activities and meals for the weekend.

By 8:00 PM the weather had cleared and we were able to go to the dancing in the Activities Barn. They had a DJ who started out playing the songs from the movie. Lots of swings and a couple of Rhumbas, Mambos, and Hustles. We danced from 8:00 to 10:30, which was good because dinner was great and we needed to burn off a couple of hundred calories.

We took a Dirty Dancing tour on Saturday morning. The guide had been working there when they filmed the movie and had a lot of insights and information about the filming of the movie. You might recognize the bungalow where Baby's family stayed and the "No Guests" sign from the movie. The bungalow has changed somewhat over the years. They added the stone wall and moved the staircase.




After the tour we went back to the Activities Barn to play Dirty Dancing Trivia Bingo. Our table won free Dirty Dancing T-shirts. During the trivia game, hotel staff passed out copies of the hotel register page where Patrick Swayze and several other cast members signed in. We noticed that Cynthia Rhodes, who played Penny, stayed in the same room that we did. I can honestly say that Penny and I slept in the same bed. OK, it was twenty years apart, but I can still say it. Quickstepper got her picture taken with a special someone, also.


A local dance studio, Sapphire Ballroom & Dance Center, came up and gave dance lessons during the afternoon. They had beginners classes on Mambo, Meringue, and Foxtrot. It was a good review for us and we got a couple of hours of practice. The instructors from the class had a showcase after dinner. This showcase was based on music and scenes from the movie. The showcase was followed by a couple of hours of general dancing. All-in-all, we got almost 5 hours of dancing in on Saturday.

On Sunday, we ate breakfast and hit the road for home. We took the southern route home; I-81 to I-64, then up Route 29 at Charlottesville to Route 17 toward Fredericksburg. We saw plenty of rain, but the only significant traffic was on I-95.