It’s all in the Isoprene that scatters blue light in the air. Isoprene is generated from decaying trees that are abundant in the area and hence the namesake for the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Smoky Mountain National Park. It was designed to connect Great Smoky NP and Shenandoah NP and it does except when there is a bridge problem or slide along the 469 mile of curves, mountains (hills in California), and Overlooks. Then there are numerous small state roads to traverse over the rolling farm country to get back and forth from the Interstate or State Highways or to towns where there are things like the Floyd Country Store Experience.
The navigator failed to assess a static of how many miles Vinny traversed over the Blue Ridge Parkway, but for various reasons we estimate to be under 100 miles. One reason is that the route planner had us in the western corner of the Smoky’s when we set out rather than a campground a bit more eastward, but we were certainly happy to have stumbled into the Cades Cove Bike Trail day on Wednesday so switching around too much was not possible given the American Legion Gig schedule in Fernandina Beach and wanting to visit D’Ann and Bryan in Tennessee.
The Parkway upon arriving in Asheville would have taken us down a curvy way south and then back north and when deciding how to divide the trip, we took faster roads, then hopped back on so we could hike Craggy Gardens. There are no businesses along the parkway, mostly overlooks or trails or exits on and off to state roads, so actually staying on for all 469 miles is not so doable for Vinny on one tank of diesel. And after a while it’s nice to see something different. Our only Asheville stop was at my sister-in-law’s recommended Tupelo Honey restaurant where I had a delicious beef and grits specialty. It was a really cool place and yummy food and then we stocked up at the Trader Joes.
Craggy Gardens was a beautiful 360 view of the Blue Ridge Mountains with only about a 3/4 mile hike up. It was more of those breathtaking expansive mountain ranges and was a perfect fit after our marathon drive that starts at Cades Cove that morning. After Craggy Garden we traversed the Parkway and made it to the very peaceful Linville Falls Campground in time to have a fire and play a bit of music before bed. But first more testing of the signal strength because here we both only had one bar, exciting stuff to justify the setup. Cades Cove had been a complete fail since we had no bars to start with. The extension was almost fully extended on this beautifully calm night and yes the coverage was improved ! Didn’t we feel self-satisfied with this data driven purchase. Well unfortunately we never did make it to Linville Falls Hike the next day because in our true to form cadence we didn’t get out until 11am and we needed to be at the Blue Ridge Music center to hear Bluegrass on the Breezeway which was about 100 miles warranting getting off the Parkway to make the journey quicker. We drove through some of the quaint small towns like Crossnore, Linville, Grandfather (winery/highland games ) and Boone, that had restaurants, wineries, out-door consignment market Saturdays and other cool businesses with absolutely no traffic.
Jumped into the second set of Cedar Ridge Band for a very enjoyable hour of bluegrass at the Blue Ridge Music Center. It also had some trails and we got in a 2.5 mile hike along a mostly wooded trail that was perfect. Here we first heard about the New River Bike Trail from some fellow vanners who said it started in Fries and meandered along the river and would cover almost 50 miles. Well the scheduler had too much planned and back tracking was not possible because the next day required us being at the Floyd Country Store for a bluegrass jam session in the afternoon.
Cedar Ridge Band – Blue Ridge Music Center
But the first stop along the way was the Black Ridge Loop, near the Rocky Knob Rec area on the Parkway.
Although the view from the trailhead was beautiful and started out in the woods, it went through a lot of exposed fields with no view and parkway zooming. There were even monsters along the way.
Wouldn’t do it on a warm sunny day for this reason, but rain clouds were tormenting the sky and the temperature was perfect for us.
Along the way we discovered a possible Family Compound property – Julie is on the lookout for cheap land where there is water for when the west runs dry. This abandoned looking huge structure looked in pretty good shape and it was for sale.
Some 50 yards down this trail was a perfect tiny home for John and I, and it also had a small stream. Let’s have a family meeting!
Tonight it would be Utts family campground with excellent Wi-Fi for a change. Got the blog posting done for the Smoky Mountains at this quiet place on the hill. Floyd Country Store was a definite gem on the trip.
BlueGrass Jam at Floyds Country Store
Don’t know if the music, food or just the general atmosphere is best. But they push back the T-shirt racks on Saturday and Sundays for the music. And there was a belt rack of my former leather crafting exactly how I had made them in the basement in Wilmington. The soups and desserts were incredible.
Floyd is a town with a quaint main street and there was another Open Mic going on at the Pizza Bar down the street. The planner will plan a bit more time here next year. A bit of a drive north to Limestone Park conveniently located but buggy as we did a quick overnight and in the morning our little screen was thick with nats.
Destination Crabtree Falls, but first we veered off the spreadsheet to discover Natural Bridge in Virginia. The National Park Service Signs and Autio got us here and we were glad not to have missed this 215 ft high, 40 ft thick and 100 ft wide rock arch formed 500 million years ago when water that flowed through this underground river collapsed, all except for this Natural Bridge.
During the short 1 mile hike through the bridge, we were looking for George Washington’s initials because legend has it that when he surveyed this area he was the first official National Park Graffiti policy violator. Thomas Jefferson bought the land and mined the natural occurring Saltpeter (potassium nitrate) used for gunpowder.
FYI: Autio is an App that has points of interest according to GPS so one can learn about the places you are driving through. Some are just historical accounts but here we learned about Josie Bishop, radium queen of the Mojave Desert. Evidently she bought land in 1937 that ended up having the richest radium deposit of the time and at one point she was the richest woman in the country. At that time radium was $72,000 per gram which is 1.3 million per gram in today’s money. That’s the kind of stuff you can learn on Autio in addition to the typical tourist attractions. We learned about Harvey House Girls which is an historical marker that we always would see on the way to Vegas.
Back to Crabtree Falls. Wow that was hike up 100 ft Fall with 5 major cascades the tallest of which is 50 ft. It is a smaller version of hiking the Mist Trail at 317 foot Vernal Falls in Yosemite.
You are much closer to the Crab Tree falls and don’t get nearly as misted. The path would wind around upward and then you would come to another cascade.
This was one of our favorite hikes which also had our first injury slip. Ironically John had told me 30 seconds before to be careful on the way down and he ended up doing the slipping. His account of the story: “While traversing a large boulder my hiking boots slipped out from under me. Thanks to my massive upper body strength and trekking poles, I was able to break the fall with my hands, ending up with only a sore left shoulder. No blood or swelling, but the boulder suffered three major fractures and is not expected to survive” He was able to resume spousal duties and built what he has deemed as his best fire ever. With Firewood at 50 cents a log, we loaded up and the warmth and the glow was unrestrained.
Crabtree Falls Campground was old and rustic and we had the best spot with our own little falls stream that our fire pit sat commanding the view. With no connection to the world, we listened to 70’s music from my phone and finished off another Tennessee Moonshine.
The next day I would find out that Wi-fi was available at the store all along, and good thing because I had a reminder to make a British Columbia Camping Reservation. By the way the website doesn’t seem to work well on phones and I ended up calling from our Lunch/Diesel Stop in Waynesboro. Not only did Vinny need diesel but a downpour was happening. We opted to enter Shenandoah a bit more up north, but we ended up having to turn on the hazards, 15 mph drive through many foggy spots so needless to say we didn’t see much from Skyline Drive. Well it cleared a bit when we got to Front Royal, the northernmost end.
Thankfully my memory kicked in during the Crabtree Falls Hike. I had noticed there were a lot of Vineyards in Virginia and since we had no reservations thought about finding a Harvest Host Vineyard along the way. Then boom it all of a sudden hit me that Ashleigh, our Justine’s wedding adopted daughter, had a family-owned vineyard in Virginia. Luckily I had gotten her address after the wedding and the spreadsheet would take us right by Front Royal where she lived. I quickly Instant Message over Crabtree Wi-Fi and now we had a place to stay. Her girlfriend had an apartment, complete with 6 inch Broodmare window from the dining room, on a lovely horse farm, perfect to bed down Vinny for the night. So nice to meet Jess, and her two cute little girls, and catch up with Ashleigh during this gorgeous dinner sunset.
John’s retirement bottle of whiskey was finished as we talked about the universe and the power of love, and I made them go to bed just before 11pm as everyday is not a Saturday for them. Even I slept until 930 am this morning in these peaceful horse hills.
Off to see Ashleigh’s Glen Manor Vineyards in Front Royal. She gave us the grand tour of this quaint vine to bottle vineyard showing us all the aspects from washing, crushing, testing, storing, tasting and then we drove through the hilly vineyard to see the operation and where Skyline Drive looked down on the farm land which has been in her family for generations.
Glen Manor Vineyard – Ashliegh’s Family
On the way up to NJ we had decided to stop at University of Delaware and eat lunch at the Deer Park Tavern, where we had our first date about 41 years prior. It is an official historic landmark so its location and building had not been altered, although now there was a patio with seating out front.
We strolled around and to our horrification the Blue Hen was gone from in front of the Chemical Engineering building, but the mall with its stately trees and original colonial style brick buildings were still intact and especially lovely on this nice warm day.
A walk down memory lane is always nostalgic especially when doing it at the place you found the love of your life over 40 years ago.
Next time on the Blue Ridge Parkway
It was actually somewhat difficult to stay on the Parkway because google maps navigation invariably took you off opting for routes through towns. We had found the parkway to be much less traveled than I had anticipated, and there were many country roads that navigation took us down. Cell service was quite poor or non-existent in There appears to be lots of campgrounds and Harvest Host along the way
Travels with Vinny VanGo 
I so enjoy your writings dearest Lisa and the story of John’s slippage was hilarious
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