Autumn Color in the Blue Ridge Parkway – Cherokee to Asheville, NC

Driving the Blue Ridge Pkwy ©2018 Bo Mackison

The idea is to fit the Parkway into the mountains as if nature has put it there.
~ Stanley Abbott, Landscape Architect for the Parkway

What a grand day for an autumn color drive! The sun was bright, the trees were in peak colors at the lower elevations, and, surprisingly, the traffic was minimal on a Monday in late October. We were heading to Hendersonville, North Carolina, en route to Patti Digh’s Life is a Verb Camp. (More on camp coming in later posts — it’s my annual recharge!)

We left the Cherokee Visitors Center in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park around noon and headed south towards Asheville.

Groundbreaking for the 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway was in late 1932, but it was officially dedicated on September 11, 1987, fifty-two years after construction began.

After President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Virginia’s first Civilian Conservation Corps road building camp where they were building the Skyline Parkway through the new Shenandoah National Park, he approved a similar CCC project, with the intention of creating jobs in the rural areas of North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Blue Ridge Vista ©2018 Bo Mackison

Plenty of opportunity to pause and gaze at the scenic mountains in the distance. It makes for slow travel, but every stop is worth it.

Log Hollow Overlook ©2018 Bo Mackison

Trees! Shades of oranges and reds, yellows and browns, with a scattering of evergreen green. Log Hollow Overlook offers a stunning view of Looking Glass Rock, one of the largest masses of granite in the Eastern United States. This rock gets its name from the shimmering mirror effect when sunlight hits its surface after a rainfall.

Blue Ridge Parkway ©2018 Bo Mackison

Nearly 200 parking areas and overlooks were incorporated into the Parkway’s deisgn so that motorists could enjoy a leisurely ride through the mountains. The road rises to 6,000+ feet at Richland Balsam Overlook in North Carolina. Up and down and around every curve — beauty!

Blue Ridge Autumn Glory ©2018 Bo Mackison

We only drove about 70 miles on the Parkway, but it was a leisurely drive — is it possible to have a drive too leisurely on this scenic road? — with many stops at the overlooks and a desert and coffee break at Mt. Pisgah Inn. This inn, at nearly 5,000 ft elevation, is the highest place for lodging on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Imagine how gorgeous is the view from the motel rooms’ balconies! (Sorry, no photos of the Pisgah Inn — we were in a hurry to get to our cabin in Hendersonville by night fall!)

Exploring Cades Cove in Great Smoky Mountain National Park

The sun was shining; the trees were glowing.

On our way to Asheville, North Carolina, we took a side trip in the Smokies and drove the Cades Cove Auto Loop. It was a lot of extra driving, but well worth the time. The trees were like a towering cathedral, the interior a sacred space.

Open spaces gave a view of the countryside. These clearings were first settled by Europeans in the 1830s. Deer and turkey were plentiful along the route, but none conveniently posed for a photograph.

 

Cades Cove Methodist Church, built by John D. McCampbell. The white frame structure has two front doors, a design that was common in the 1800’s in the Smokies.

Spots of color brightened the way along the 11 mile loop road. Though the traffic was not bumper to bumper, it still took several hours to follow the loop.

Autumn Road Trip – Great Smoky Mountain National Park

On my way to Patti Digh’s Life is a Verb Camp, I took a long cut–as opposed to a short cut–and spent a day in the glory of autumn’s yellow deep within the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

My traveling friend and I first stopped at Sugarland Visitor Center just inside the park entrance near Gatlinburg. I spoke to a park ranger who said the autumn color was two weeks behind schedule. Lucky for me, because the lower elevations were at peak color. If the colors had been right on time, we would’ve missed them all, but we were smack dab in the glory of a hardwood forest autumn.

Elkmont River flowing with ferocity through the Elkmont Campground in the southern Smokies. The golden reflection of the trees in the swirling water was quite mesmerizing.

As we stood here, on the river shore, my friend recieved a much hoped for message that a relative was cancer free. Here, in this space and time, we felt an abundance of blessings.

And then a heron appeared at the river’s edge.

According to Ted Andrews:

“The Heron is a symbol of balance, able to be sure-footed upon the ground and fly gracefully through the sky. They explore quietly and slowly along shorelines, waiting for opportunities. But once they have spotted what they want their swiftness in attack shows no hesitation…

There is a sense of security in the Heron energy. They have the ability to evolve and become more adept at their talents so they may always be taken care of…

Self determination, self-reliance and guidance are the trademarks of the ever popular “lady” of the lake and spiritual guardian of the nature lover’s soul, the Great Blue Heron.”

Day 13: From Ship to the Shores of Lake Mendota

LEGO Traveler at Copenhagen Airport ©2018 Bo Mackison

October 6, 2018

It took us 25 hours to get home — 25 long sleepless hours. But it all went smoothly — no lost tickets, no lost luggage, no missed connections.

Flying Over Amsterdam ©2018 Bo Mackison

Flying over Amsterdam, I was able to spot the Viking Sky in the Cruise Ship Terminal. (near the bottom of the page — where the harbor splits into an upside down V, that skinny white ship is the Viking Sky)

From the ship (1 hour) to the Amsterdam Airport where we had a long wait for our first flight (3.5 hours) to our first flight to Copenhagen (1 hour) to our second long airport wait, but this time with lots of shopping options, so not as tedious (4.25 hours) to our second flight of the day to Chicago (9.25 hours) to going through customs (1.25 hours) to waiting for the bus (1 hour) to the bus ride from O’Hare to Madison (3 hours) to a car ride to our front door (.75 hours)

Home, safe and sound, with memories to last forever.