We left the house at 9:00 so we could eat breakfast first. Thanks to Bro. Jones for the birthday gift certificate to BreakfastTime, we enjoyed this wonderful meal! I couldn't eat all of it! By 9:40 we were on the road.
When we left Winston, this was what the skies looked like. We had rain early in the morning. It was supposed to clear out by the afternoon and be sunny. We hoped the same was to be true on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Heading north on 52, I took this picture of Pilot Mountain. You can see that we ARE starting to finally see some color in our trees.
We exited 52 at Mt. Airy, NC. We soon crossed over into Virginia where we entered the Blue Ridge Parkway at around 11:00. You can see that the roads are still wet.
I thought the sky was beautiful for this picture!
We stopped at one overlook and, as the sign says, it is a view of the Piedmont area of NC. In the far distance is Pilot Mountain. I do not know how far away at this point we are from that nob.
Just a taste of the colors we saw throughout the whole trip on the Parkway today.
One of Tim's goals today was to stop at Cumberland Knob. We are standing on it in this picture. Not too thrilling...and quite disappointing after the huffing and puffing I did to get there! I am soooooo outta shape!
The rest of the trip was spent making stops at various sites and shops along the way:1. Brinegar Cabin, (see more here - http://northcarolinamountaindreams.com/462/brinegar-cabin/). I thought I read or heard that their cabin was the sole survivor of a flood. Tim and I wondered how a flood would occur in the mountains.
2. Northwest Trading Post, where we bought a jar of Black Raspberry Seedless Jam for $5.75.
3. Then stopped at a Garden and Craft Shop about 1/4 mile from the Trading Post. They had the same exact jar of jam for $4.19! Go figure! We just laughed! What can you do?!
4. We ate lunch at one of the overlooks, Jumpinoff Rock, I believe. It was 3:30!
5. Next stop, Boone, NC. We are staying here tonight and tomorrow night. We will go to the Linville Falls and Linville Caverns tomorrow and possibly Grandfather Mountain and Chimney Rock. Saturday we will finish up this section of the Blue Ridge Parkway and head back home on I40, probably stopping at Mt. Mitchell on the way down, which is near mile marker 360 of the parkway. So, that gives you some idea of about how many miles we will be traveling, just on the parkway itself, this trip.
This section of the Blue Ridge Parkway (section 4) runs from mile marker 220 to 370. We did section 1 earlier in the year. Since our goal was to see the leaves in the mountains, that is why sections 2 and 3 have been skipped for now.
3 comments:
Have a great trip! Sounds like a lot of fun! Can't wait til Brad and I can do things like this but I guess we haven't earned it yet! =) I have a shirt that says Blue Ridge Mountains on it. I wonder it it's got something to do with the Parkway?
Not necessarily as there are towns and sites all along the parkway, which starts up in Virginia. Not even sure where it ends, not yet, anyway! :)
Yes, this is one of the nice things about the kids being grown.....you can take off and go whenever you want! Except we still have the restriction of church responsibilities!
I always loved the view as we drove out of the mountains in VA and approached NC. Seeing Pilot Mtn was one of the milestones along the trip. Coming south, it meant we were 3 hours away from Goldsboro. Coming north, it meant we'd almost finished with NC and would be heading into VA shortly. Oh, how I wish Lisa lived that close now!
My parents used to pull me out of school one weekend in Oct. during my early adolescent years and we would drive the Parkway. It was always such a wonderful trip down to the Smokeys.
Enjoy your trip!
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