The Blue Ridge Parkway is 469 miles along the crests of the southern Apalachian Mountains. It is the link between the Shenandoah and Great Smokey Mountains National Parks. We did not drive the whole distance. We left some for next time!
This is classic Blue Ridge Mountains!! Ridges and ridges behind ridges! All of them seem to have the blue hue and most often they appear as hazy.
Taken at the Rockfish Valley Viewpoint.
This structure was built against the hillside where it served as a root cellar, a storehouse for vegetables and fruits with smoked and cured meat hanging from tho rafters.
This was the primitive 'refrigerator'. Called a spring house, it was built over a small spring (still running) and was used to keep eggs, milk and butter cool and fresh.
There was a real garden on this site. Someone was taking very good care of it.
Well, we saw lots of stone walls, especially along the view points. But, I could not tell just what walls this sign was addressing!
We saw these butterflies at several stops. We see them in butterfly exhibits, but seldom can you catch them with their wings open like this.
These are the same butterflies as above. It appeared that they were attracted to something that had been spilled on the pavement.
Sometimes we would pull into a view point and ask ourselves, "Didn't we just see this?"
Rock Point Overlook.
Same view point but looking in the other direction (south).
Raven's Roost Overlook.
Tell tale sign of rock climbing going on. Sure enough, while we were there a rock climber drove up and was excited to join a group already climbing.
Taken at Three Ridges Mountain Viewpoint.
Well, I could not see a cliff anywhere. Perhaps I was standing on it!!
Wow, green almost all the way down!! How did that happen? This is one where I could sing, "On a clear day, you can see forever!"
Taken at the Big Spy Mountain overlook. I spied a lot of flowers!!
Taken at Chimney Rock Overlook.
Great long lens shot of the valley below the ridge.
In some of the wider areas there are people that may still be farming.
Tom was capturing our drive from the passenger's seat.
This was a lovely drive. We plan to return and photograph more of the Parkway south of where we stopped.