The Blue Ridge Parkway

Friday, October 14th.  It rained quite a bit last night.  But when we got up, the rain had quit and there was a little bit of clearing going on.  By the time we hit the road we could see sun in the south and heavy clouds to the north.  Fortunately, we were heading south on the pkwy.  The Blue Ridge Pkwy is about a 430+ mile road along the spine of the Blue Ridge mountains.  It starts in the Waynesboro area and extends south thru Virginia and into North Carolina.  There's lots of twists and turns to the road and lots of pull-offs to see vistas.  So the traffic is moving in the 35-45 mph range.  Fortunately there wasn't much traffic.  But I can imagine it would be quite heavy in the summer.  Actually fall is definitely the time to go because of color changes to the leaves, both up close and in distant views.

We visited a demonstration farm that shows how the original settlers, mostly Scottish, Irish and German, survived in the mountains.  These are the folks I have come to know as 'hillbillies'.  Very ingenious and adaptive to survive and make due with very little that they couldn't grow or make for themselves.  Buster was interested in making friends with a hillybilly chicken.  They mostly settled in flat  areas between peaks.  Those were called hollows or 'hollers'.

We took a side trip to Glasgow, VA to see a natural bridge.  What a rip-off!!!  It was privately owned and they charged $18 per person to see this thing that was no more phenominal than the natural bridge that is up by Payson, AZ.  It's like the biggest ball of string or the corn palace.

It was a great day...well worth getting thru the rainy days.  We took lots of pictures so it's hard to pick just a few for the blog.  I would highly recommend this road trip for anyone in the future.