We left Cherokee and made a beautiful drive through Smokey Mountain National Park on the way to my Brothers house in Bowling Green, Ky. I was truly amazed at the amount of traffic in the park but understand as the foliage peepers were out in force. Went to Smokey Bones BBQ for dinner, it was terrific. Friday was low key and laid back. Bob worked and we did a little shopping, then chilled as the weather was less than desirable. Sat we spent a good part of the day watching college football before we went out and got the GRAND tour of the Western Kentucky basketball inner sanctum. All I can say is WOW. These kids have it made. The facilities are unbelievable. massive "man-cave leather recliners in the film room. A weight room the pros would be happy to have. 24 hours access to 3 different cafeterias and the gym to shoot hoops or watch film. Once the tour was done, we went to the WKS home coming football game with tickets near mid field in theater style seats while the rest of the...
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We pulled into the River Valley Campground just outside Cherokee, NC having just completed the 469 mile drive of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Total miles traveled to date 10,330. All I can say about the Parkway is what a fantastic scenic drive through forests, meadows, mountains, and vistas. Just about every turn in the road was a "WOW" view. We had overlooks that allowed us to view across 5 or 6 mountain ranges some 35-40 miles away. Under bright blue skies with a beautiful sun highlighting the colors we saw some of what we came for. We are a week early it appears due to earlier rains and the lack of the colder temps. We noticed a significant number of trees have already dropped their leaves. The Parkway has produced an app you can download that provides milepost information for the entire road. This was quite useful information as it also provided camp ground, shopping, points of interest, museums, and anything else you could ask for. Today is the final day of the exploratio...
The National Museum of the Marine Corp was amazing. Really well laid out with numerous docents to answer questions. Telling the history of the Corp from the late 1700's complete with authentic weapons and sabers. We spent 3 hours and could have easily spent 3 more. Mon we left and headed for Shenandoah NP. 105 miles with 75 turn outs. We stopped at maybe 50-60 of them. Such a pretty day with such inspiring vistas across many miles. A very nice map in the visitors center highlighted many of the points of interest. We can see the color is trying and it is certainly better here than the last couple days. Mostly a tree here, a tree there but it is easy to see what the blanket would look like if timed correctly. We had one stop with a sign detailing what the ridges were. The first mountain was 10 miles away and the furthermost ridge was the Appalachians and that was 35 miles away. The most colorful tree and a couple pictures to close. Tue is leg...
We depart Woodland under some of the nicest skies in days. We can see blue and shadows on the road. We are driving the backroads through PA through farm land and trees. The rolling hills are what I call whoopee hills. You go over the crest and feel your stomach fall. We don't take many photos as there is non e of the fall colors, but once in a while a single tree will show a few leaves in orange. The target for the next few days is the Prince William Forest RV campground. We will be here for 4 nights. This turns our to be a very nice NP campground run by concessionaires with water and electric at the sites. Nice pull throughs and excellent bathhouse facilities. The only thing lacking is the wifi. Seems to last for 2 minutes and then quick, but I was informed it was weak when I called to set up the stay. I chose them as they are 30 miles from DC and the days trips we had planned. Fri is Arlington National Cemetery day. The last time I was here was the summer of 1964. Back then t...
Monday is depart Mass day as we start a little west to avoid NY, NJ and the big cities. The most notable occurrence is we manage to drive in 5 different states. We left Mass and went through RI, Conn, NY, and stopped in Matamoras, PA. I would love to post photos of all the welcome signs but they are blurred with rain drops. I had developed a bursitis in the left elbow and it had gotten pretty tender so we sought medical attention. Several hours later we were back at the campground. We would have stayed an extra night there but it was right next to I-80 and we wanted to get closer to Punxsutawney. We moved on and found a terrific campground, Woodland Campground in Woodland, PA. Nice sites, excellent wifi, reasonable warm shower house and great owners. The drive was mostly on PA back roads through lush farmland and lots of trees and hills. I would estimate 30-40% of the trees had already lost all there leaves. The rest were mostly still green but occasionally we would see some color. ...
Sunday Oct 15 is Cape Cod day. The intent was to take leisure drive out the main route 6, then come back on 6A closer to the water. We began with a visit to Yarmouth altering the route to Hwy 28 after crossing the main bridge. As one might expect there were sandy beaches in Yarmouth. On to Chatham, home to a significant US Coast Guard station. On display the first production series lifeboat of it kind, a self righting 44ft cutter. Built in 1963 it serves two different tours at Chatham before being retired in 2009. Then to Eastham where we visited a visitors center. The agent first told us about the lighthouse and also about the traffic delay due to a festival in Wellfleet. He then gave us a back roads route to avoid the traffic mess. The lighthouse originally built in 1797 had to be moved 450 feet due to erosion of the cliffs in 1996. They purchased 10 acres of land in 1797 and toady less than 4 acres remain. The road from there to Provincetown was primarily in th...