Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smokey Mountains

We are finally back into the mountains and it feels good to see something other than flat topography.  We are seeing pine trees as well as Rhododendrons which remind us of the Northwest.

Spent a few days in Northern Georgia, actually 1 mile from the North Carolina border.  We were about 2000ft high and into low mountains.    Took a drive through some of the little towns like Franklin and Highlands NC in search of waterfalls.  Found a beautiful one called Dry Falls. 

There is a Dry Falls in eastern Washington State that flowed during the Missoula Ice flood era when it formed the Columbia River. 

from behind Dry Falls

Dry Falls

Not sure why this one in North Carolina is called Dry Falls because it was most definitely not dry.  The path from the
parking lot takes you down to the falls and behind it. 

While in Dillard, Ga., we had dinner at the Dillard House, one of the oldest resorts/restaurants in the area.  Carrie and Arthur Dillard initially established it in 1917, when their first guest was a circuit-riding minister named Rev. Henry Byrd.  They have been serving Southern style home-cooked meals now for 96 years.  Dinner was okay....nothing spectacular but there was a lot of food!

After dinner we attended the  The North Georgia Community Players theater on their opening  night of "Dixie Swim Club".  Cute story about 5 women, friends since college days on the swim team. They have gone their separate ways, but meet every August for a weekend together. Takes you through about 40 years of their friendship.

Next stop was Waynesville, North Carolina at the southern entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We took a drive and ended up in Cherokee, Tn.  which is in the middle of the Cherokee Reservation. Very touristy town, with a Harrahs casino bigger than the one in Lake Tahoe.  We stopped in town and and went through a most impressive museum on their history. The history takes you through their early years before the British colonized, to the Revolutionary war and then their land being taken from them.  Every time we go through an Native American museum I feel guilty about the way this country treated these people.  What hurts most are the stories of how they were forced from their homes and sent west on the 'Trail of Tears' to Oklahoma.  Today, the ancestors of those forced from their homes onto Reservations, have the last laugh, with the very profitable Casinos they have on their land.

 A tour we took one day was to the Biltmore summer home, which is a large private estate and tourist attraction in Asheville, NC.   It was built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895 and is the largest privately owned house in the United States, at 178,926 square feet and featuring 250 rooms sitting on 8,000 acres.      The
tour is self guided and you have to have a map to find all of the rooms.  We imagined guests who stayed there either never left the main area they were staying in, or had to have a map to find their way around.  They do not allow you to take pictures inside the 'home' which was too bad as the opulence continued inside.

Besides the inside of the house, we walked thru some of the gardens that had all of their tulips in bloom and through the greenhouse.  The story of their accumulation of wealth was impressive along with how they almost lost it all to taxation and the depression.  Towards the end of the depression a decision was made to open the house to the public in order to save it. George's descendants still manage the running of the house, the 8,000 acres and all of the other businesses that are in Biltmore Village, including their winery where we ended our day.  Wines were okay, and laughed when they told us grapes for theirs wines are purchase mostly from California.

 

When we were planning this trip Deane told me we did not want to drive the RV on the parkway, that we should find spots to stay close by where we could access it by car.  Boy was he right.  The road is only 2 lanes and VERY curvy.

Last day in the southern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway we took a drive on the parkway to visit Chimney Rock. A rock that sticks a little over 2000 ft up and offers and incredible view of the valley below. It is now a State Park, but the man who owned the land first had a dream of making it a tourist attraction. It's pretty impressive where he built an elevator in the middle of the mountain to take you to the top if you do not want to climb the 491 stairs. 

 

walkway through mountain to
elevator
 

Chimney Rock

part of the 491 stairs to the top

One last thing we did that day was take a drive recommended by the RV park we were staying in to see a herd of elk.  Drive of about 15 miles, took us over a mountain onto unpaved road into a area where
we found the elk and actually had them trying to stick their heads into our car.  They have been fed by visitors which is sad, so they have very little fear of humans. 

On their way to the car to see whats
for dinner

We've moved a little further north and are now in Lenior NC at the Green Mt. Park Resort. Not a bad place, quite big and we are on a little creek that offers us a nice babbling sound at night.  From here we are able to see more of the Parkway. 

 

In one day we started by visiting Boone NC.  Named after Daniel Boone who was born in Tennessee, but spent a couple of years in the NC area.  On recommendations, we first stopped at the Stickman Bakery, bought bread, coffee, scones and muffins.  Great Breakfast! 

 We then headed to Mast General Store... an institution in this area since 1883.  My sister is opening a restaurant in Duval Washington next month as is looking for some 'old' stuff.  We found some great stuff at Mast General as well as the antique store across the street.

 Next stop was Blowing Rock.... Indian legend has it that Indian girl met love of her life but he was from another tribe.  Being called back to his tribe he had to leave and caused much angst between

 them.  Instead of returning, he jumped off the rock to his death.  She prayed to the gods to bring him back and because of the winds below the rock, he was returned to her.

It is a cliff 4000ft above sea level overhanging the Johns River 3000ft below. The phenomenon is so called because the rocky walls of the gorge form a flume through which the NW winds sweeps with such force it returns objects cast over the void.  Ripley's Believe it or Not, says this is the only place in the world where snows falls upside down.  http://theblowingrock.com/

 

 

Windy on the bridge

Onto Grandfather Mountain where the highest suspension bridge in the west and is one mile high.  Day we walked across the wind was blowing at 30mpg and the temp was just below 40 degrees. 
http://www.grandfather.com/things-to-do/mile-high-swinging-bridge/ 

Grandfather mountain suspension bridge

 

 

 

As we drove about 40 miles on the Parkway today and each twist and turn, never ceases to amaze you.  There is one section of the Parkway that took over 20 years to complete.  Seems there was great disagreement on how to join the parkway around Grandfather mountain.  Linn Cove Viaduct is a 1,243-foot concrete segmental bridge which snakes around the slopes of Grandfather Mountain. It was completed in 1987 at a cost of $10 million and was the last section of the Blue Ridge Parkway to be finished.  Deane was fascinated with this section of the Parkway and wanted a picture.  So we hiked a short way from a vista point back along the road to get some pictures.

 

viaduct

 

 

Heading to Virgina tomorrow..... more to come!