Day 7 – June 18, 2015: Blue Ridge Parkway

Today we were able to combine sightseeing with our travelling.  While the main goal for the day was to get from Shenandoah to Durham, North Carolina, we were able to do most of this trip on the famed Blue Ridge Parkway.

 

The start of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

View from one of the turnouts on the Parkways.

Having spent last night at the (beautiful, glorious) Best Western (with its comfy bed and clean bathroom), we bought ourselves some extra time today.  Instead of packing up the tent and waiting in line for showers, we were instead able to spend some time checking out Charlottesville and the surrounding area.  However, this did not go as smoothly as we had hoped.  We decided to first head to Monticello, the home of President Jefferson, so we plugged it into the GPS and headed off.  For some reason that we still cannot figure out, the GPS took us to a warehouse in an industrial park (that did not have the word “Monticello” in it at all) that was 14 miles away from the real Monticello and in a different city.  So we turned navigational duties over to the Google machine and made our way to Monticello.  When we arrived, we found that the only way to see the house and gardens was to pay $24 to take a 3-hour guided tour.  Since we did not have the time to do that, we decided to head a mile down the road to President Monroe’s house at Ash Lawn-Highland.  We were stymied again there, as viewing this house was $10 per person and required a tour.  So we just decided to head in to Charlottesville to check out the University of Virginia and its famous architecture.  On the way we made a pit stop at a mountaintop orchard where we picked up some freshly picked cherries and apple cider before heading into town.  We got into town and found that the famous rotunda building at the university, which was designed by Thomas Jefferson, was being renovated and completely covered by scaffolding.  So that being our third strike, we decided to head back to the Blue Ridge Parkway and start making our way to Durham.

Amy standing by a pool formed by the upper falls.

The Blue Ridge Parkway covers some 460+ miles between Shenandoah National Park in the north and Smoky Mountain National Park in the south.  It is actually the longest "linear" park in the United States.  Skyline Drive, which runs the length on Shenandoah, lets out onto the parkway.  Our plan was to cover the first 100 miles from Waynesboro to Roanoke before cutting over to Durham.  The ride was very beautiful – the Parkway winds its way through the Blue Ridge Mountains and there is almost no traffic along it its two lanes.  I’m sure it gets much busier in the fall when people come to see the colors, but for most of the day we had the road to ourselves.  About 80 miles into our drive we stopped for a quick hike at an area called Fallingwater Cascades. This was a short hike – only about 2 miles – but in the 90+ degree heat it was a little more taxing than we had anticipated.  But the views of and walk along the falls were well worth it and it was nice to get out and stretch our legs.

Standing below the main falls with the Blue Ridge Mountains all around us.  We tried using the timer to take this picture and the number of takes it took to get it to work is embarrassing.

The rest of the ride went by without incident.  We finished our last 20 miles on the Parkway to Roanoke before cutting through southern Virginia and northern North Carolina over to Durham.  The only “excitement” was when we heard on the radio that the temperature had gone above 100 degrees – so not much excitement.

The views along the Parkway.

Me and my new buddy Simon.

We arrived at Jake and Kemi’s house and found that Zach and Carolyn had already arrived.  The rest of the night was spent playing with Jake and Kemi’s new little guy Simon and catching up with everyone.  Tomorrow we head out for a long weekend in Asheville.