We were up and on the road early today, back on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We got on the road about 7:30 (amazing!!), and were on the Parkway by 8:20 (we had to stop for breakfast sandwiches at Sheetz, which were not very good), and crossed the North Carolina state line at 8:40.
Although we had spent the last two days in North Carolina, we went back to Virginia to get back on the Parkway, at the same exit we got off. Our plan to get an early start was twofold -- to make up for the miles we didn't travel yesterday, and to hope to see some wildlife. And we were successful at both. By 9:00, we had seen 9 deer and 3 turkeys. We saw one more turkey later in the day, but our early start paid off. We were also hoping to see some fall color in the leaves, and we did see a lot -- they are not fully turned yet, but we took lots of pictures trying to capture the colors, and the pictures don't do justice to them. Some of the hillsides were really beautiful. We stopped at a few overlooks to try to get better pictures.
And another pull-off.
We had been seeing a lot of big leafy bushes, and Joe was trying to figure out what they were. We stopped at Craggy Gardens pull-off, and our Milepost Book said there are lots of pink and purple blooms of Catawba rhododendrons that bloom here in the spring, so that mystery was solved. That was one of the flowers Joe suggested.
Although we had seen then all along the Parkway, they were really thick here. It would be great to get to see them in full bloom.
Our next viewpoint (we didn't stop, so Joe tried to snap a photo out his window) was of this pretty lake. We saw a few lakes along this route.
We exited the Parkway at Milepost 382 about 2:30, and skirted around Asheville. We hit the Tennessee state line at 3:40. We held out to fuel until we got to Tennessee, which was good because we found gas for $1.929 (whoop whoop). Another 10 miles and we found a campground for the night at Dandridge, TN. Joe spent a lot of hours behind the wheel today. From 7:30 a.m. to 4:25 p.m. And we covered 284 miles, most of them below 45 mph. But we enjoyed the Parkway, all 382 miles of it that we drove.
My cold is better, not completely gone but I'm not blowing my nose as often, although my normal cough has started up. We got the RV set up and I laid down for about 30 minutes, then we drove into town for a pizza. We hope to make it to Mike McRae's tomorrow, but they are forecasting heavy rain -- I think mostly east of us -- so we will see how our progress goes. Mike has tickets for us to see an Elvis impersonator on Sunday, so we definitely need to keep moving along.
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