Jackie and Chris Travels: Slow start with a good ending

So we have fallen into a bad groove. Maybe it is because of the longer days or maybe it is because of the later starts, but we have been getting late starts and travelling until late into the evening. Travelling into the evening isn’t necessarily a bad thing but getting to our hotel or other accommodation for the night and then trying to record what we did all day is getting to be time consuming. It is leading to us getting to bed late and sleeping late the next day, which results in us missing breakfast, or getting on the road later than we would like. Sunday was no exception. We got out of the hotel just before checkout time: 11 AM. Unfortunately breakfast was only until 9:30. Then we rearranged the back of the beast for 20 minutes because it was getting to be cluttered. By the time we got on the road, all of the diners and restaurants, at least the ones that were open (this is Sunday in the South, nothing is open) were no longer serving breakfast. We quickly realized this and knew we had to go for some lunch instead. We drove around Boone and Blowing Rock, NC, looking for something that would inspire us. All of the fast food places were open but we were not in the mood for that. So we drove around town looking for something. When we realized we were not going to find anything, Chris had already passed the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Not a big deal, he thought, this road, US221, parallels the parkway for miles. We can get on just about anywhere, or so we thought. The road twisted and turned for mile after mile. Usually Chris loves this kind of road. He enjoys driving around the turns at probably higher than safe speeds, and he loves the views. Unfortunately this road had so many twists and turns that you could never get over about 15 mph. And there were no views. It was boring. It just twisted through a forest, going round and round, up and down, forever. The whole time, Chris could see on his app (waze…great app that acts like a GPS where you can see your road ahead of you and you can see where speed traps are real time!) that the parkway was running parallel to us. We thought, we’ve come this far there has to be an entrance to this parkway someplace around here so we can’t turn back now. Finally, after about 15 miles, and 50 minutes, yes 15 miles in 50 minutes, we hit the parkway. By now we had backtracked part of yesterday’s route. We were about to get on the parkway, when Chris spotted a sign at the last second advertising a tourist trap just 1 mile up the road followed by another town 3 miles away. Since Grandfather Mountain is one of the top tourist attractions in the state, there surely must be something to eat in that town that was open on Sundays. So Chris pulled a U-ey on the ramp and we headed for town. It took almost 10 minutes to get there because the stupid road twisted and turned some more. When we got there it was like a ghost town. Sundays are killers for businesses in the South. By now it was about 12:30. We saw a lone restaurant in a strip mall open. Casa Maya, which is a Mexican restaurant. So we went for it. We had a great meal which was very fulfilling. We each got a meal, we split an appetizer and we each had glasses of iced tea. We were so full; we couldn’t even finish our meal so we took some with us. This ended up being our dinner as well. We did find one thing odd about this restaurant. Besides the fact that the entire kitchen staff was speaking Spanish (this was odd being that we are in the middle of nowhere), the restaurant had no guacamole. Apparently Saturday night (Cinco de Mayo) was pretty busy and they have yet to recover. When the bill came Chris asked Jackie how much she thought it cost. Her estimate was in the 50’s. The whole thing including tip was only $29. We want to move here.

When we finished lunch we got moving. Back on the parkway and by the time we reached the spot where we got off on Saturday it was already 2:00. So basically we had gone nowhere. We made a stop at the Linn Cove Viaduct, which was pretty cool. According to our guidebook, “for twenty years, an unfinished 7 mile section of the parkway was delayed in opening as adjacent landowners, environmentalists, engineers, and architects put their skills together on how to preserve the scenic and fragile environment on the slopes of Grandfather Moutain in NC. The resulting Linn Cove viaduct is a symbol of pride to landscape architects and engineers for its marriage of beauty with utility and habitat protection.” This bridge was pretty impressive. We were kind of surprised that they didn’t just blast a tunnel through the mountain as they had done in so many places south of here. Chris climbed illegally up to an overlook above the viaduct and got a good picture. Once up there he came upon a trail which we could have legally walked up, but that was a mile in each direction. Our scramble up the rocks was much more fun and a lot quicker.

We made only a couple of other short stops today at viewpoints as the scenery while still beautiful, was different. There were not as many viewpoints, maybe one every couple of miles instead a couple every mile, and when there were viewpoints it was extremely cloudy, hazy, or the trees needed to be cut back to improve the view. Today’s drive was much greener than it had been the last few days. We suspect it was because we are now at much lower elevations, we’ve been peaking in the high 3000’s rather than being up above 5000 feet as we had been the last few days. Then, the trees were just starting to get leaves on them. Now, the trees are full. And the road, while still on the ridge, is travelling through forests, rolling hills and farmland rather than skirting the tops of the mountains. It is still very enjoyable, but is more of a country drive than it is a mountain drive.

Our next big stop was at MP 272, for the Cascades trail, which led us to a tall waterfall after about ¾ miles. The trail, like others, had numerous interpretive signs which pointed out the different kinds of trees found in the area. At the end we came to the waterfall, where we shot a video and took some pictures. We also saw some catepillars all over the place. The closer to the water we got the bigger they got. We walked back to the car, enjoying the time out stretching our legs and we were again on our way.

On the way, we saw some cool looking livestock. Can anyone guess what these are?

Next, we stopped at the Northwest Trading Post at MP 259, where for 50+ years they have sold locally made crafts. Like the last place like this, things were very pricey. We ended up buying only a postcard for one of our nieces and some awesome truffles (we got a red velvet and a turtle truffle). Why they sold truffles, who knows, but they were good. We each got one and ate it in the car.

By this time we were realizing that we were not going to get very far today and we should get out of our groove and get someplace early so we can rest up and wake up earlier to get on the road a little sooner in the morning. So we scanned one of the guidebooks for motels/campgrounds over the border in Virginia. We wanted to at least make it to Virginia for the night. We still want to camp on this trip but the sky was looking very ominous so it wasn’t going to be tonight. There seemed to be quite a few motels but many seemed cheesy and we were not in the mood for that. Then we saw it. All the way up at MP 193 was a caboose motel. These are just what they sound like, cabeese (is that the plural of caboose?) converted into a place to sleep. We called them to try and secure a reservation but all we got was an answering machine. We left our number in hopes they would call us back.

We then started up the parkway again, because by now it was just after 4 and we wanted to be done with the driving by 6. At the rate we had been travelling so far, we would never make it. Lucky for us though, the parkway was closed someplace after MP 230. This was a planned closure, as the guy in the information center had warned us about it a couple of days ago. The detour was very well marked and it was 28 miles long. This was good in that it allowed us to make some really good time. When we got back to the parkway it was a little after 5 and we were right at the Virginia border. We needed gas by now and the good thing about only driving 100 miles a day is that you do not waste a lot of gas. This was the first time in three days we filled up! Gas in Virginia is 20-30 cents cheaper per gallon than NC so we filled up at 3.59 per gallon. There were cheaper places but we didn’t want to drive 5 miles out of the way to save a couple of bucks. At the gas station, Chris faked out a biker who was waiting in line behind us to fill his tank. The beast, as usual, was thirsty, but the pump automatically stopped at $75. So we had to hang up the pump, put our debit card back in to finish filling up. We learned that the credit card machines at the pump will not take the same card twice in a row, so we had to hang up the pump a second time and try another card. We put another few gallons in and by this time the biker went to another pump.

We tried calling the caboose people again, no answer, and this time we were only about 10 miles away. We figured we would drive past the place when we got there and see if they had vacancies. If not we would find a motel. When we got to MP 193 the phone rang. It was the caboose people asking if we had found a place to stay yet. We said no, and they gave us directions to their place, which was only 1 ½ miles away. We arrived to find 3 red cabeese on a hill and a smiling owner who was more than eager to rent one to us for the night. The cabooses, or cabeese as we like to call them are converted into little motel rooms. They each have a Jacuzzi, a bathroom with shower, satellite TV, queen sized beds and a tiny fridge and coffee maker. They also have grills outside and a nice wooden deck where you can sit on wooden rocking chairs and enjoy the sunset. We tried to enjoy the sunset, but it was too cloudy so we just enjoyed the weather while we finished up our Mexican food and just enjoyed life.

On Monday we should be back on track. We plan on getting up earlier, enjoying a pancake breakfast and hitting the road sooner.