The ‘Amazing” Blue Ridge Parkway


Today we completed our amazing journey down the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It winds itself through 469 miles of mountains and meadows.  It connects Shenandoah National Park (Skyline Drive) with the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.

The Parkway was constructed as a depression era work project for unemployed men.  It was also intended to help drive economic activity in the small communities along its route.  Thousands of men lived in work camps for no wages but a roof over their head and 3 square meals a day.  They were referred to as the Civilian Conservation Corps.  These men put the finishing touches on the roadsides and built the park information buildings.  The road base construction work was done by road building companies.  They were forced to hire a certain amount of local men.  However, I am sure these companies managed to ‘fleece’ the government just like they do today.

When we first read about the designers and their visions for what the Parkway was to be, we thought, oh yes, more ‘mumbo jumbo’ from architects and landscape architects.  How did they think that a road cut through the tops of a mountain range with numerous tunnels (27) could possibly blend into the natural landscape?  However, as we continued to drive it over the past week or so, we had a change of heart.  In fact, we now believe that they got it right.  Maybe they were just lucky, and it is the result of 80 years or more of natural regeneration but just the same, their vision seems to have come to fruition.

The Parkway was a challenge to drive pulling our ‘little’ trailer.  One can only imagine the difficulty for some of the ‘big rigs’ that we have seen.  It seems like 50% of the traffic was made up of motorcycles and a high percentage of those have been “Harleys’. (Eat your heart out ‘crotch rockets’!)  It is considered one of the premier motorcycle routes in America.  And then there are the bicyclists.  We saw many road cyclists out on the Parkway.  We have been referred to as ‘nuts’ on more than one occasion with some of our cycle touring exploits but we are sane in comparison to some of these cyclists.  These roads have serious hills, tight curves, no guard rails and absolutely no shoulders.  These cyclists do this for fun.  Hills, in our case are just an obstacle between us and our next destination.

We are set up in another KAO Kampground this time in Cherokee.  We are still in North Carolina but only a ‘stones throw’ away from the Great Smokey Mountains National Park and Tennessee.  We will be here for 3 nights because this is the American Memorial long weekend.  We booked this a few days ago and are probably lucky we did.  National Parks are booked a year in advance.

Distance Traveled = 158 km.  Wildlife Sightings = Wild Turkey, Chipmunk, Indigo Bunting, Rose Breasted Grosbeak, Black Throated Green Warbler, Eastern Towhee, Cardinal, Green Heron, Red Shouldered Hawk, Coopers Hawk.


View from Parkway (early in the day)



Wild Rhododendrons blooming along the Parkway


The  Blue Ridge Parkway as it winds through the mountains


Looking Glass Mountain


View from Parkway (late in the day)

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