Leslie and David's Wanderings: 24 Oct. 2018 Blue Ridge Parkway, TN and NC

Today we decided to drive the southernmost portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Parkway runs along the spine of the Appalachian Mountains from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia for 469 miles to the Great Smoky Mountains NP. The parkway includes over 88,000 acres of land along the parkway and some natural areas. There are hiking trails along the parkway that we did not know about that look like they could be fun. When planning our trip, we had originally thought of setting up outside Shenandoah National Park so we could visit the NP for a few days and then work our way down the Blue Ridge Parkway to Great Smoky Mountains NP. Man are we glad we did not set ourselves up for that route! The Blue Ridge Parkway is a two lane, very narrow blacktop road with hairpin turns, steep grades and most importantly, short twisting tunnels. Many of the tunnels we drove through had one or more turns in them and the height of the tunnel at the edge of the road was less than ten feet tall. The center of the tunnels were taller but with the twisting turns, you could not have driven down the center since you could not see oncoming traffic. With our 13foot 6inch tall Wanderer, we would have been scraping the tunnel walls.

Leslie drove today, so she had the fun of trying to keep “The Beast” on the road while David got to enjoy the views when not holding on for dear life. It was Leslie’s turn to give David a few scares and get even for Wears Valley Rd! There are lots of pull offs to taken in the beautiful views. At these higher altitudes, there was more leave color than in the lower altitudes of the NP. In another week it should be gourgeous. We drove the Blue Ridge Parkway from its southern most point in the Great Smoky Mountains NP to just outside Ashville, NC (about 60 miles). To get to the parkway, we drove through Great Smoky Mountains NP on US441 (taking the Gatlinbury Bypass) to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. At the top of the New found Gap, we crossed over from Tennassee to North Carolina. North Carolina is the 12th state since we left Texas in June. The Appalachian Trail crosses the road at this point. Seventy miles of the Appalachian trail runs through the park. The stretch of the Appalachian trail that runs through the park is one of the most remote and rugged portion of the trail.We stopped at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center to obtained our Blue Ridge Parkway passport stamp (our18^thPark Stamp). Then it was onto the winding parkway. We stopped at several of the pull offs to admire the beautiful views. We stopped at the Waterrock Knob Visitor center to eat our picnic lunch and walk Etta. By the time we got to Ashville NC, Leslie was tired of the constant turns so we jumped on I-40 to go back to Pigeon Forge.