Fall 2010 Road Trip: Day 11

10/26/10:  Exploring the Asheville area, including Brevard, and the tiny little hamlets of Lake Toxaway, Sapphire, Cashiers,  Tuckasegee,  Cullowhee,  Dillsboro,  and Sylva... plus downtown Asheville!

Another rainy start to the day, we set off for Brevard to check out that area.  The rain came down in earnest on our trip there, but it was worth it.  Interestingly enough, Brevard is located in Transylvania County!  It's a great little college town, with very friendly folks at the Chamber of Commerce, who gave us a great sales pitch about moving to the area!

The pouring rain was knocking the fall foliage off the trees:

The fall foliage created colorful reflections on the pond near the Brevard Music Center:

Canada Goose swimming on the pond:

More country roads through woods!

We decided to take the back country roads from Brevard back to Asheville, driving east for a while, then north on mountain roads!  By the time it was lunchtime, we were deep in the woods on a winding mountain road.  We stopped at a place that advertised food and souvenirs, but when we went in, we were told that the cook had not yet arrived, so there was nothing to serve, but we were welcome to wait for him.  We didn't, but this incident gave us an idea of how casual and informal things are in this part of the country!

At one point on these winding back roads, we drove around a bend and almost hit a very large branch lying in the road, because we hadn't seen it until we were nearly upon it.  It could have caused a serious accident, especially if another car had been coming in the opposite direction!  We pulled off the road onto the shoulder, and Bob walked back to drag it off the road.  This is a photo of him returning to the car after his good deed!

There were several dams and a hydroelectric plant hidden in the back woods:

We also saw some ramshackle farms along the drive. This one seemed very picturesque against the backdrop of the woods and some lingering fall color:

After driving all morning and stopping for lunch at an all-you-can-eat-buffet, we finally headed back to Asheville.  By this time, the sun was trying very hard to make an appearance:

It was pretty nice by the time we reach Asheville, where we spent the afternoon exploring the downtown area.  Here are some shots of me that Bob took - not bad, honey!

Here he caught me just getting ready to change positions, I think!

A cropped version of the first shot - I really like this one!  I even made a cartoon version of it!I may even use one of these as my avatar on Facebook or Daily Pics!

We had a great afternoon exploring downtown Asheville on foot - we had soft drinks from an old fashioned soda fountain, browsed through a market full of local art, checked out the library and did a little shopping.  Here is some cool wall art we saw near the place where our car was parked: 

Another great day - unfortunately our last in this area!  I love it here, and will miss being here.  There is so much more to see and explore!!  Maybe, just maybe, this is our retirement destination?  It really feels right to me!

End of Day 11!


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Fall 2010 Road Trip: Day 10

10/25/10:  Chattanooga, TN to Asheville, NC!

We were awoken early this morning by thunder and lightning and torrential rain.  Poor Emily has to be at work by 5:45AM in this weather!   We aren't in a rush this morning, so we take our time getting up, and getting ready to head out.  It was 60 degrees and still raining when we left Emily's house at 9:30AM, after having a great breakfast of coffee and the desserts we brought home last night!  Yikes, I am going to have to get myself back on track when I get home!

We plan to make the trip back to Asheville (about 200 miles) at a leisurely pace, there's no hurry from this point on.  We're taking a route that follows the Ocoee River for a while, and then back through the forest surrounding the Smokies.  It's a rainy day but hopefully it will still be a scenic route!

One of our first photo stops was at Ocoee Dam #1, first in a series of dams built on the Ocoee River by the TVA.

Rock striations and reflections near the Dam:

Then we entered Cherokee National Forest:

Despite the rain, the fire danger was high!

More photos of the Ocoee along this scenic drive:

Bob on a bridge!

Further along our route, we happened upon the Ocoee Whitewater Center (near Ducktown, TN) which was the canoe slalom venue for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.  The Olympic race course was built in the dry riverbed of the Upper Ocoee River. 

You can see there is not much water in the river here:

Beautyberry:  we saw this beautiful bright purple berry
in several of the places we visited in the South!

Not long after this stop, it started raining heavily again.  This is a shot I took of the mountains and the road ahead through a very rainy windshield!  

Right around this time my camera shut down because my memory card was full and I had to delete some of the older photos.  I've been downloading onto my computer each night, but have been keeping all my photos on the memory card too,  just as a precautionary backup!  Just about the time I got my camera back in operating order again, we came upon this beautiful scenic spot, just as the rain stopped for a short time!  It must be a sign!

View from the bridge above:

On the road again,
we finally passed over the border into North Carolina!

We passed by a spot that held promise of a good photo op, but by the time Bob was able to turn around and went back, it had started to rain again in earnest!  I got the shots anyway, rain and all!

As we got closer to the Smokies, we found ourselves on more winding mountain roads!

This shot was taken for my Dad, who turned me on to Bryson City Tales, a book written about this area, by a young doctor who moved his family here right out of Duke University Medical School. 

Our route into the Smokies in late afternoon, with sunshine starting to peak through the rain clouds!

There was much more color in the hills now than there was when we left this area six days ago: more reds and oranges.  The color was just breathtaking, and we had to stop to get some shots!

We decided to drive into Cherokee, where we hoped to find some authentic Indian jewelry.  I have been looking for a very specific silver ring, to match one I bought for Bob several years ago.  Although that search was fruitless, we did a quick exploration of the town and I got a couple of shots:

More Bear statues, Cherokee-style! 
This one is Eagle Dances Bear

Sequoia Syllaberry Bear

By that time, it was getting close to dinner time, and we still wanted to check out nearby Waynesville, so we decided to eat there, and drive around afterwards!  After a good dinner (where I ate way too much!) we did explore the area, and decided we really like it here!

Getting dark out now, we started back to our motel - we're staying in the same Red Roof Inn we stayed at last week!   Life is Good!!  The only bad thing is that this trip is almost over! 

End of Day 10!

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Fall 2010 Road Trip: Day 3

10/18/10:  Christiansburg, VA to Asheville, NC via the Blue Ridge Parkway!

We got out earlier than usual this morning, because there is a lot of driving to do and a lot of things to see.  It's getting colder;  it was only 48 degrees when we left this morning, but warmed up nicely during the day to the low 70s. 

At first I thought that the Blue Ridge Parkway would just be an extension of Skyline Drive, but it's really much more interesting and diverse than Skyline Drive.  Some of the scenery was pretty spectacular, with abundant overlooks into lush valleys,  similar to what we saw yesterday.  But there were also plots of farmland, meadows, and lakes, as well as more examples of mountain farms and homesteads from days gone by.  There were also some lodges and restaurants.  In many areas the parkway was lined with rough-hewn fences, such as the one below!

Some more great Blue Ridge Parkway overlooks:

A gnarly old tree:

We saw this sign at one of the first rest stops we made, so maybe we finally have the prospect of seeing some real bears??

Then....we found one of the best places on the Blue Ridge Parkway so far, quite by accident.  We stopped at a gift shop/restaurant for our second rest stop of the day, and as we were walking back to the car, I spotted a sign and a path that led us down to Mabry Mill (mile post 176.1), a restored gristmill/sawmill on a lovely pond!  

This was the first of several *very* exciting finds for me on this trip!   A  spectacular photo op, the lighting was just perfect to create amazing reflections of the mill and water wheel, surrounded by wonderful fall colors and topped off with the bonus of a couple of swimming white geese!  See for yourself with the photos below!  This scene was perfect enough to make any photographer look like a professional.   I just couldn't get enough of this view, and caught it from as many angles as I could!  Here are just a couple of them:

Further:

Closer:

Originally built in 1910,  the historic water-powered grist mill, sawmill and nearby blacksmith shop provided a view of pioneer life along the Parkway, that I also caught with my camera!

A canal brings water to the water wheel at the Mill:

This building housed the local Blacksmith:

An old wagon:

and then back again to the wonderful view of the Old Mill,
from another angle:

and another:

Okay, okay!  Many dozens and dozens and dozens of clicks later, Bob was finally able to tear me away from this wonderful place, and we continued our drive southward.  

We stopped at this pond for the beautiful colors and reflections, but once we were stopped we heard loud, reverberating gunshots from the woods.  Is there hunting on the Blue Ridge Parkway?  That doesn't seem right to me!

Well, I just checked that out online, and found that the Blue Ridge Parkway - like all national parks - is managed as a wildlife preserve and hunting is not permitted anywhere within its boundaries, yet I also read that the Parkway offers special permits to individuals who wish to access U.S. Forest Service land for the purpose of hunting. The permit allows access only from certain Parkway overlooks, and the conditions of the permit must be followed exactly.  Seems a little contradictory, but perhaps the shots we heard were one of these "special cases"?  Still doesn't seem right that guns are permitted in areas where tourists are wandering around!

Back in the car again!  There is beautiful color around every bend in the road!  This shot was taken from the passenger's seat.  Actually,  I took many shots like this, at various times during the trip, but for the most part, they don't turn out well!  This one was the exception.  The bit of blur in the foliage actually makes the shot look painterly!

We passed this little cabin, and immediately Little House in the Big Woods came to mind!  There was no place to pull over, so Bob had to go up the road a bit to pull off, and I trekked back on foot to get this shot:

Not many miles further down the road we saw a sign for the Blue Ridge Music Center (milepost 213), and decided to stop and see what it was all about.  As we drove in, we saw a sign announcing  "music today"!  We learned that the center celebrates the history and performance of old time mountain music of Virginia and North Carolina and is largely concerned with local artists , many of whom perform for free! 

That day the Buck Mountain Band was playing, and I got these shots of the group, and individuals.  I was especially taken with a very cute - and obviously very well trained -  dog, who behaved so well during the entire performance! You can see her lying in the middle of the first shot, and again a closeup portrait at the last shot!

Good old gal!

While at the Music Center, I learned that the Blue Ridge Parkway was celebrating it's 75th Birthday this year.  Happy Birthday Blue Ridge Parkway!  I'm so happy to be here helping you celebrate!!

Just down the road from the Blue Ridge Music Center, we crossed the state line from Virginia into North Carolina!  Yeeeee Haw!  We made it to North Carolina! 

Two couples who were at the Blue Ridge Music Center with us, (from Oklahoma, I heard them say!) apparently left right after us, as they arrived at this sign right after we did!   They asked me to take their photo, which I did!  Hope it turned out okay!

Now we're ready to move on to our next planned destination: Grandfather Mountain, near Linville, which boasted a mile-high swinging footbridge!  I wasn't sure I could walk on it (I often get vertigo in high places) but I sure wanted to see it regardless!  Following an extremely curvy road, we finally arrived at the top of the mountain, where the Mile High Swinging Bridge was located:

 More tourist shots, with signage!

Some views from that Mile-High vantage point:

The Mile-High Swinging Bridge:

After swinging on that awesome bridge, we drove halfway back down the mountain and stopped in to visit the Wildlife Habitat!  We were promised some bears there, and since we weren't sure we'd actually get to see any in the wild, we decided to take what we could get - and take lots of photos too!

This is Gerry, 
one of a half dozen or so Black Bears in residence here:

He seemed almost as interested in us, as we were in him!

There were deer, cougar and river otters here as well.  My shots of the deer didn't turn out well, and the river otters were napping and weren't feeling much like posing for pictures.  But I did get a shot of Nikita, one of two cougars (mountain lions) in the habitat!

I have to mention we bought some yummy fudge and apples at the general store here too :) And I guess I should also mention that I foolishly left the window down in the car for the hour or so that we were in the Habitat!! Yikes!  Everything we brought with us was in the car, including my laptop and some extra camera equipment.  Someone was looking out for us this day!!   (Thank you!!!)

Then it was off to Asheville!  It was late afternoon, and we wanted to make it to our motel before dark, and hopefully find a place to eat along the way too!   A staff person at the visitor center recommended Famous Louise's Rock House for dinner, so we went off to find it.  Apparently the reason this place is so "famous" (at least to locals) is because of it's location - a point we didn't realize then, and which I just discovered while working on this blog!  Located at the intersection of Highways 221 and 183 in Linville, NC, this restaurant happens to sit on the exact spot where three counties (Burke, McDowell, and Avery) meet.  "They join right near the fireplace," says Shirley Yager, daughter of owner Louise Henson.   And...it's also listed in the National Register of Historical Places.  Ah, mystery solved!

After dinner, we began the last leg of the trip to Asheville, another 70 miles on down the road! We no more than got back on Route 221, when we saw the very thing we'd been hoping to see for the past two days:  a BEAR!!!  In the wild!!!  Or in this case, coming out of the woods on the side of the highway!!!  But it was so sudden and unexpected, we  passed him before we could pull over and stop.  By the time I got my camera ready,  he hadcrossed the road behind us and trotted off into the woods on the other side.  He seemed to be a rather small bear - a yearling perhaps - and we were almost expecting another bear (Mama?) to follow  him across! But no such luck, so we continued on our way, no less elated at what we had seen!  

But...the wonders of this great day were not over yet!!!!  The sun started to go down and the sky turned astonishing colors of pink, orange and purple, and we were treated to one of the most amazing and long-lasting sunsets we have ever seen!

From subtle beginnings:

to:

to:

Ooooooooo:

Ahhhhhhh:

A truly magical ending to a perfectly wonderful day!

End of Day 3!

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