Slowing Down


Friday, May 17, 2019

Last evening was the first time on this adventure that we were able to comfortably sit outside.  We actually stayed awake until after dark.

After a leisurely pack up this morning, we were headed down the road by shortly after 8:00.  I am not so sure that Sue saw it as ‘leisurely’.  Once again, we tackled the hills and curves of the the Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park.  This is truly one of the most challenging drives that we have ever faced, definitely a rival for our experiences in Australia.  We stopped for a one-mile hike before leaving the park.  (Imagine it had the nerve to rain for the whole 30-minute hike…the only rain of the day.)

We have now arrived at our original destination, the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It is another challenging driving experience, a motorcyclist’s dream.  It is narrow, hilly, full of curves, and completely void of signs warning of an upcoming sharper curve.  The lack of signs, we are told, is so that the natural environment is not interrupted.  Once again, the highway is a highlight to drive.

We have slowed our pace considerably.  We are camping in Otter Creek National Park Service Campground.  It is located just outside of Lynchburg Virginia.  It is a primitive campground without showers and cell phone service.  Maybe that is why we are 1 of 3 campers here so far.  (That and the warning from the guy at the gate that Bears are guaranteed to wander through the campground.)  We plan to spend tomorrow exploring some Civil War history in Lynchburg.

Distance Traveled = 204 km.  Wildlife Sightings = Deer, Groundhog, Yellow Swallowtail Butterfly, Black Swallowtail Butterfly, Eastern Towhee, Chipping Sparrow, Magnolia Warbler, Red Eyed Vireo, American Redstart, Indigo Bunting, Scarlet Tanager, Pileated Woodpecker.


Black Rock Summit, Shenandoah National Park


Sunrise at Big Meadows Campground


Deer blocking our path while hiking





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Some Final Thoughts

Image
I have always found it difficult to write the final blog.   This one is no different.   As we pulled into our yard last evening, reality hit…this adventure had come to an end.   But we have so many memories. Being on the road for 3 ½ months, we traveled 22,742 km through 23 States and 1 Province.   We know that we will be asked, “What was your favourite place that you visited?”   That is impossible to answer.   We saw and experienced so many things.   The variety of landscapes in the United States is simply ‘mind boggling’!   It has so many beautiful National Parks and we had the pleasure of visiting quite a few of them. It is time to wrap this up.   We would like to thank all the people who have taken the time to follow our travels.   It has been fun to share our experiences with you once again. We would also like to thank all of our friends and family who shared in and made our adventure possible.   Without your help and support Sue and I would not have been able to lea
Read more

Up One Side and Down the Other

Image
We drove north today to South Dakota’s capital City, Pierre.   It is pronounced ‘Peer’…only the Americans can pronounce a clearly French word in such a manner.   Pierre has a population of only 14,000.   It is the 2 nd smallest US State Capital.   There is also nothing there.   If you wanted to tour their capital buildings, you had to give them 48 hours notice…not sure what that was about.   Didn’t matter, we probably would not have anyway! What we did get to do today though, was drive up one side of the ‘Mighty Mo’ (The Missouri River) and down the other.   The river is a big one.   In places it is 2 miles wide.   It has a large water shed and this is the river that caused a lot of the flooding problems in the late Spring and early Summer.   It is still running far higher than usual for this time of year.   It dumps into the Mississippi.   We can only imagine how bad things must have gotten down in Louisiana after we left there…the river was already pushing the limits of its
Read more

A Family Connection to Plantation/Slave Ownership???

Image
Wednesday June 5, 2019 We were off to visit a sugar cane plantation today and made an interesting discovery…more later. We visited the Destrehan Plantation, a large plantation along the Mississippi River.   We joined a guided tour of the original plantation house built between 1787 and 1790 by only 8 men.   Our tour was with a bus tour…no we were not on the bus tour…we just had to endure the presence of a large group of people…and you know how much I like crowds…not!!!   The plantation has a long and storied history.   It began as an indigo plantation and by 1800 switched to the more profitable sugar cane.   It was large…one mile wide and stretching 8 miles from the banks of the Mississippi River.   By the beginning of the Civil War, it had 200 slaves. It continued growing sugar cane until the early 1920’s when it was sold to a Mexican Oil Refinery.   It then became their headquarters and was abandoned in the late 1950’s and sat vacant for over 20 years.   It was a mess when
Read more