"The idea is to fit the parkway into the mountains as if nature has put it there"

The main reason we took two weeks to travel from Huntsville, AL back to MA was so we would have time to finally experience the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We have driven back and forth between Alabama and Massachusetts several times, just about every time we took interstates.  At least twice we travelled up I-81 through the Shenandoah Valley, which is the most direct route.  While it is a little bit out the way we have driven to Atlanta then picked up I-85 through South and North Carolina, then picked up I-95 somewhere in Virginia.  We’ve travelled north out of Alabama into Kentucky where we again took interstates, certainly much more scenic than the others, but they’re still interstates.  We have even taken a route half way between I-81 and I-95, US29, which is not as fast paced as interstate highways, but is still two lanes in each direction all the way to the Washington area.  Each time we travelled we wished we had more time because we’ve always wanted to take the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The parkway, as we have mentioned here before, is a 469 mile route which runs from the extreme southwestern portion of North Carolina northeastward through NC and VA.  It runs pretty much along the ridge line the whole way (thus the name), as opposed to I-81 which pretty much runs through the valley.  While the two routes pretty much parallel to each other and never more than maybe 75 miles apart (they are much closer in Virginia, probably usually 20 or so miles apart), they are worlds away.  You can make excellent time on I-81, cruising along at 75-85 MPH if you are careful.  You can stop and get gas and just about any type of fast food you can think of just about every 5-8 miles if you wanted to.  Traffic on I-81 is nothing like I-95, but the truck traffic is much heavier.  The route is scenic by interstate standards but it gets old fast.  The BRP has a speed limit of 45, and to be honest we’ve had problems maintaining that given all of the twists and turns.  It is one lane in each direction with numerous pull-offs, tunnels, scenery, and wildlife.  Even if trucks were allowed on the parkway, which they are not, the lowest clearance we’ve seen so far on the tunnels is 10’ 6”. You can imagine what kind of truck traffic the highway might have given such a low clearance if they were allowed.  Low clearances like that kind of limit the large RV traffic as well.  There is also very little traffic this time of year.  Gas is unavailable along the entire parkway, but is never more than a few miles away if you were to get off the road.  So far on our route we’ve seen two McDonald’s restaurants and we’ve covered about 180 miles.  Taking this slower route you get to see the part of our country that we all zip right by each and every day.  You get to slow down and talk to the people who live here.  It is amazing how people light up when you tell them you are from New York or Boston.  Why would anyone from such a faraway place want to come to my little part of the world they seem to think.  They seem to ask you questions as if it is the first time they’ve encountered an outsider.   They don’t realize it, but we are just as interested in them and the way they live as they are with us.  This is one of the reasons we chose to travel this way.  This is why we will be back. This kind of stuff never gets old.  When we finally arrived at our hotel last night, Chris plugged in the previous night’s address into the GPS to see how long it might have taken to get here had we been in a hurry.  105 miles, 2 hours and 21 minutes.  It took us 9 hours or so to cover that route yesterday.  We didn’t take the quickest way and we sure were not in a hurry. 

We also learned the difference between a National Scenic Byway and an All American Road.  A National Scenic Byway, only 120 of them in the US, are roads recognized by the US Dept. of Transportation for their archeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational, and/or scenic qualities.  All American Roads, only 31 of them in the US, are the most scenic of the roads in this program.  The designation means they have features that do not exist elsewhere in the United States and are scenic enough to be tourist destinations unto themselves.    This is another reason why we chose this route.  Each and every time we’ve made this trip between the Southeast and home, we have always wished we had more time.  More time to experience this drive.  We could have done it several times but we didn’t want to just rush through things.  Taking a day or two to travel this route, while certainly possible, would be like visiting New York City for the first time but only having a few hours to experience it all.  You can do it but you would miss out on all kinds of things.

We finally spent an entire day on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Well, not an entire day.  Last night’s hotel was 15 or so miles away by interstate, so we did have a good 15 minutes of boring driving before our trip began.  Before we hit the parkway we hit a gas station to put air in one of the tires.  The beast spoke to us this morning and told us that our left front tire only had 21 PSI of pressure.  Every other tire was right where it should be, at 34.  This can’t be right we thought, do we have a slow leak?  So we spent 75 cents (air used to be free) and aired up.  We watched the tire the whole day after that, it never lost anymore air.  We suspect someone was messing with us over night and maybe let some air out of the tires.  When we picked up the beast a couple of the caps were missing from the tires, including the left front.  That could have made it a little more appealing to someone who felt like letting air out of our tires to do so.  We also made one other quick stop.  Being that yesterday was cinco de mayo we wanted to have margaritas tonight so we stopped at a liquor store to pick up some pre-mixed margaritas.  We might have bought some other stuff as well while we were there but we can assure you whatever we may have bought is unique to North Carolina.  We also felt a little safer when we saw a sign on the door outside of the liquor store forbidding guns inside the store.

Finally we hit the parkway.  We stopped almost immediately at the Folk Art Center, just outside of Asheville.  By this time we had been driving on the parkway for all of two miles so we just had to stop.  They had all kinds of cool art for sale, mostly handcrafted stuff by local artists.  The problem was that everything was very expensive.  A beeswax candle should not cost $25, especially when it is only 4 inches tall.  We window shopped and we were on our way after this brief stop.

Like yesterday, we stopped at almost every single pull off, at least in the beginning.  After driving about 10 miles in close to an hour we figured that this needed to stop if we wanted to actually do anything while on this parkway, like get out and take a small hike.  Sure, the views were amazing at each of these viewpoints and it did get us out of the car, and we really were not in a hurry, but at that rate it might take us another month to get home.  (Note from authors: We would LOVE to spend a month on the road but there are bills to pay and Chris has to be back at work in 8 short days.  Second note from authors: If there is anyone out there who wants to sponsor our road trips, let’s talk).  We picked up a book the day before yesterday at one of the parkway’s visitor center: Best Easy Day Hikes Blue Ridge Parkway.  The book contains 32 hikes along the parkway ranging from quick half hour nature walks to all day trips.  We figured this would be a good way to slow down even more and see things a little more up close.  The first real stop after all of the overlooks and the artsy place was at milepost 369 (miles start at 0 on the north end of the parkway), where we got out of the car for a short hike.  We took a short hike up the Craggy Gardens Trail (a little more than a mile round trip) to the top of a small hill which offered views in each direction.  The trail started out kind of like a nature trail, with signs pointing out different plants and wildlife along the way.  The trail climbed through kind of a rhododendron tunnel, which unfortunately were not yet in bloom this time of the year at this elevation.  The trail then passed a large open air shelter which was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps back in the 1930’s.  The trail then passed across a large open field on top of the mountain to a viewpoint just over the top of the mountain, at 5600 feet.  We then retraced our steps, back to the car and back on to the drive.

Our next main stop (again, lots of little stops) was down a side road to Mt. Mitchell state park.  Mt. Mitchell is down a side road, about 5 miles each way off of the parkway.  Mt. Mitchell is significant in that not only is it the highest point in North Carolina, but at 6684 feet, it is also the highest point in the US east of the Mississippi.  For much of the drive up it seemed that the summit was actually in the clouds, but as we got closer the clouds parted and opened up for an amazing view.  Before walking up to the top, we stopped in to use the highest restroom east of the Mississippi.  Don’t be fooled by this: the bathroom was exactly like all of the other bathrooms at lower elevations; they had toilets, sinks and paper towels, just like regular bathrooms.  The actual summit was probably a quarter mile or so walk from the from the parking lot.  Up on top, besides an observation deck is something kind of different.  The mountain is named after Elisha Mitchell, who was a professor at the University of North Carolina, who back in 1835 determined the height of the mountain.  He fell to his death nearby in 1857 as he was climbing the mountain to reverify his earlier measurements.  Up on top is his tomb with a plaque telling us who is buried there.  We didn’t expect that.  Heading back down, instead of taking the same quick route we took up, we took a route again described in the book we bought yesterday.  We followed the Balsam Nature trail down, which meandered over the course of 8/10 of a mile through a spruce forest.  Along the way there were numerous interpretive signs that detail the climate, plants and animals that live up on the mountain.  While the trees in this forest are relatively small, Chris commented that where we live, if there were such a mountain this tall there would be no trees at all at this height, as typically once you hit 5000 feet or so, the trees do not grow at all.  This far south, however, the trees still grow, but they are not very large.  The most memorable part of this trail was the smell of the forest.  The spruce smell is an unforgettable smell and it surrounded us as we walked back to the car.

The tomb just below the summit.

After getting back to the car, we drove back down the mountain to the parkway, losing about 1500 feet of elevation in 5 miles.  Chris was proud to be able to do that in low gear only hitting the brakes 4 times.  Our next significant stop was at milepost 331 where we got off the highway for lunch.  The main reason for getting off at this particular place was for a homemade soap store that Jackie had read about in one of the guidebooks.  The store was up a dirt road, then up a smaller dirt road, then up a dirt driveway, the whole time Jackie was saying no one would ever find us if these people didn’t want them to.  The store was run out of someone’s house, and unfortunately they were closed even though the guidebook advertised them as closing at 5.  So we got back on the parkway with the next destination being only 11 miles away.

We first stopped at the Altapass Orchard, which we saw from the road.  They were getting ready to close but apparently all day long, every day, they have Bluegrass music, good food, and farm products for sale.  They had lots of different kinds of jams, but since they were closing all of the samples were put away so we didn’t get to try anything. As a result, we didn’t buy anything either.  Our next major stop was at the Chestoa View, at milepost 320.  After seeing a snake on the side of the path we continued downhill to an amazing viewpoint which overlooked a nearby valley and the cliffs on the side of the mountain across the valley.  We took some pictures and as we were getting ready to leave, a man appeared with a young kid and another guy.  They were local and they gave us a bunch of tips on things to see in the area.  They also told us about a case 20 or so years ago where a man pushed his wife and her friend off of the cliff to their deaths.  He said that everyone in the area was shocked when the guy was found innocent.  He to this day couldn’t believe the man wasn’t found guilty.  We talked for a little bit more and we were again on our way.

Our final stop was at mile 308, where we had intended on taking another short hike to a place called Flat Rock where there was supposed to be a great view of the valley and surrounding mountains.  We started down the trail when it started raining.  So we went back to the car. 

For most of the next 15 miles we were in a cloud, or at least it seemed that way.  We passed many areas that looked like they might be some of the most scenic of the parkway so far, but it was drizzling the whole way and you could never see more than about a half mile in front of you.
We finally got off the highway near Boone, NC where we are staying the night.  Before we got to the hotel, Jackie got cell service again and was inspired by our Uncle Timmy’s facebook post detailing the cupcakes he was eating.  This made us crave cupcakes and luckily in this particular town was a cupcake place, which was surprisingly open at 7 at night.  We bought 4 amazingly good cupcakes and talked to the store owner for a few minutes about travelling, the weather, and cupcakes, before heading for our hotel for the night.  Once we got there we were able to get a quick glimpse of the "super moon".  Last night the moon was said to appear 30% brighter and 14% larger than most full moons due to its slightly closer proximity to the earth.  We thought we were going to be clouded in but the clouds did briefly part enough for us to get a quick peek.