KathyL
0
My husband and I live in Australia but are currently in the US for nine weeks visiting our daughter and her family who live in Durham, NC.
Last Sunday we completed a 2,675 mile, two week long driving trip during which we visited six states (NC, VA, TN, GA, AL and SC) and travelled the full length of Skyline Drive, the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Cherohala Skyway (for part of which we were literally driving in the midst of about 30 Corvettes). We also travelled over Edinburg Gap (VA) and along 'The Snake' on US421 (in both directions) and 'The Dragon' on US129.
Even though we weren't riding motorcycles (the hire costs were prohibitive) we spoke to lots of motorcyclists along the way and really enjoyed seeing so many riders also enjoying the roads we were travelling. We had a few 'near miss' animal strikes (one black bear and two deer) and a couple of 'near miss' head-ons (in both cases oncoming vehicles were straddling the centre line coming around a bend and I had to brake heavily and veer to the side of the road to avoid a collision).
During our trip we visited Luray Caverns (VA), Blowing Rock, Grandfather Mountain and Mount Mitchell (all in NC), Gatlinburg (TN) (to stock up on Ole Smokey Moonshine Nog!), the Barber Motorcycle Museum (AL), the Highlands/Cashiers (NC) region and as many waterfalls as we could.
We also saw the seasonal 'Shadow of the Bear' (it occurs for a few weeks in Oct/Nov each year and can be seen from an overlook located between Highlands and Cashiers) and stumbled across one of only two covered bridges left in NC.
We had perfect weather the whole time and I'm really glad we travelled from north to south along Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway as it was wonderful to see the colours changing and intensifying the further south we went. That said, by far and away the *best* Fall foliage colours we saw during our whole trip were on Cherohala Skyway on Thursday 22 October!
We can now tick quite a few items off our bucket list now!
Last Sunday we completed a 2,675 mile, two week long driving trip during which we visited six states (NC, VA, TN, GA, AL and SC) and travelled the full length of Skyline Drive, the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Cherohala Skyway (for part of which we were literally driving in the midst of about 30 Corvettes). We also travelled over Edinburg Gap (VA) and along 'The Snake' on US421 (in both directions) and 'The Dragon' on US129.
Even though we weren't riding motorcycles (the hire costs were prohibitive) we spoke to lots of motorcyclists along the way and really enjoyed seeing so many riders also enjoying the roads we were travelling. We had a few 'near miss' animal strikes (one black bear and two deer) and a couple of 'near miss' head-ons (in both cases oncoming vehicles were straddling the centre line coming around a bend and I had to brake heavily and veer to the side of the road to avoid a collision).
During our trip we visited Luray Caverns (VA), Blowing Rock, Grandfather Mountain and Mount Mitchell (all in NC), Gatlinburg (TN) (to stock up on Ole Smokey Moonshine Nog!), the Barber Motorcycle Museum (AL), the Highlands/Cashiers (NC) region and as many waterfalls as we could.
We also saw the seasonal 'Shadow of the Bear' (it occurs for a few weeks in Oct/Nov each year and can be seen from an overlook located between Highlands and Cashiers) and stumbled across one of only two covered bridges left in NC.
We had perfect weather the whole time and I'm really glad we travelled from north to south along Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway as it was wonderful to see the colours changing and intensifying the further south we went. That said, by far and away the *best* Fall foliage colours we saw during our whole trip were on Cherohala Skyway on Thursday 22 October!
We can now tick quite a few items off our bucket list now!
