Skip to main content

A Blue Ridge Parkway Journey

Yesterday, I visited an old friend, the North Carolina Mountains. I took a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I took it from US 421 in Deep Gap (around mile 278) to VA 8 in the Rock Castle Gorge region (around Mile 170). It took about six hours to drive the 108 or so miles. Why because I stopped at a lot of the overlooks to hike or take photos. I took 209 photos on this trip. Here are some of the ones I liked the most.

The Cascades: There's a stop withing E.B. Jeffress State Park with a short hike to a waterfall simply known as 'The Cascades". It's a great spot for photos and to forget about life for awhile.


One of the great things about the Parkway are the vehicles that you find on it. Motorcycles are common place but so are classic cars.

View of Mt. Jefferson: Jefferson, NC is one of my favorite small towns in Ashe County. From the parkway, you are able to view the mountainous backdrop that shares its name.


The Lump: Is known for sweeping views of the foothills below. At the lump there's a small trail to the top and it gives this view.

Doughton Park: One of my favorite stretches of the Parkway is through Doughton Park. There are numerous trails and overlooks, and my next journey to Northwest NC and the Parkway, I will be spending considerable time there.


Devil's Garden Overlook: An awesome view here!

Mahogany Rock Overlook: I have a page on it already. I'm looking forward to improving the photos.

Bullhead Mountain Overlook: As you can tell in a number of photos. I experimented with various angles of adding the overlook information sign in the photo.

Puckett Cabin: Now in Virginia. Virginia starts of slow with overlooks and photo opportunities. In fact, for much of the southern part of Virginia, a local road parallels the Parkway. A neat little stop is Puckett's Cabin. It is the former home of Orlena Puckett who for most of her 102 served as a midwife. In fact, the year of her death - 1939, Ms. Puckett continue to perform that duty. Tragically, the 24 children that she would give berth to never survived infancy.

Mabry Mill: The last ten miles of the Parkway I was on in Virginia made the journey thoroughly enjoyable. First, a great setting of Mabry Mill. Took a number shots around the mill. Here's some highlights.



Finally, the last overlook that I stopped at was the best. The overlook for Rock Castle Gorge was home to a large patch of butterflies. It was one of those pleasant and unexpected surprises that makes any trip worthwhile.



I did gain two new Virginia Counties on this trip (Patrick and Floyd) along with a number of new routes. I also stopped at two covered bridges off of VA 8 north of Stuart. It was a great trip, the weather couldn't be better no humidity anywhere...with it in a warm upper 70s in the mountains and a just right mid 80s in the Piedmont.

I'll certainly get back to Doughton Park and more of the Parkway later this year

Comments

Mahzha said…
If you think you like Doughton Park now, you should camp there for a weekend. You'll fall in love with it.

CD
Uncle Gomer said…
I'm guessing one of the covered bridges north of Stuart was Bob White «http://tinyurl.com/3xt6kx». What was the other one?

Popular posts from this blog

Old River Lock & Control Structure (Lettsworth, LA)

  The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) and its connecting satellite facilities combine to form one of the most impressive flood control complexes in North America. Located along the west bank of the Mississippi River near the confluence with the Red River and Atchafalaya River nearby, this structure system was fundamentally made possible by the Flood Control Act of 1928 that was passed by the United States Congress in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 however a second, less obvious motivation influenced the construction here. The Mississippi River’s channel has gradually elongated and meandered in the area over the centuries, creating new oxbows and sandbars that made navigation of the river challenging and time-consuming through the steamboat era of the 1800s. This treacherous area of the river known as “Turnbull’s Bend” was where the mouth of the Red River was located that the upriver end of the bend and the Atchafalaya River, then effectively an outflow

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third

California State Route 203 the proposed Minaret Summit Highway

California State Route 203 is an approximately nine-mile State Highway located near Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Mono County.  California State Route 203 as presently configured begins at US Route 395, passes through Mammoth Lakes and terminates at the Madera County line at Minaret Summit.  What is now California State Route 203 was added to the State Highway System in 1933 as Legislative Route Number 112.  The original Mammoth Lakes State Highway ended at Lake Mary near the site of Old Mammoth and was renumbered to California State Route 203 in 1964.  The modern alignment of the highway to Minaret Summit was adopted during 1967.   The corridor of Minaret Summit and Mammoth Pass have been subject to numerous proposed Trans-Sierra Highways.  The first corridor was proposed over Mammoth Pass following a Southern Pacific Railroad survey in 1901.  In 1931 a corridor between the Minarets Wilderness and High Sierra Peaks Wilderness was reserved by the Forest Service for po