Taking a ride tomorrow on the Blue Ridge Parkway from Asheville up to Laurel Springs.
Route will cover Craggy Gardens, Mt. Mitchell, Linville Falls, Grandfather Mountain, Blowing Rock and plenty of high elevations that should be nearing peak colors right now.
The forecast is clear and mild.
We'll stay the night in Laurel Springs and head back home on Sunday morning. Not sure what route that will be yet.
Hopefully, I'll have some colorful pics to post in the next couple of days.
So we made our ride on Saturday. Sometimes things just work and sometimes they don't. Got started late, made a wrong turn and ended up 12 miles of course, then hit ridiculous traffic.
The main purpose of the ride though was actually to meet up with our friends from G-boro, luvs and John and this objective was accomplished.
The temp was about 51 when we left and dropped somewhat as we got up to the BRP from Asheville. The sky cleared up nicely and Igot a few pics at the beginning of the ride at Craggy Gardens and then around Mt. Mitchell. I almost missed Blowing Rock due to my "detour", then when I got righted, we ran into a huge delay on Hwy 221 and got sent on another detour. We finally got back to the parkway and as we approached Grandfather Mountain and Linville, we began to see very heavy traffic. I gave up on the idea of trying to stop for pictures as we trudged along. Finally got moving and eventually made it up to Laurel Springs.
We met up with luvs and John at Freeborne's and they were already a couple of beer up on us. They were very patient for waiting as our planned 4 1/2 hr trip turned into 6 hrs. We got settled in and gathered at the bar for some burgers and a beer or seven. We commenced to they typical talkin' sh1t and such. The band that was supposed to play didn't show up but we had fun anyway. At last call, we grabbed a couple of six packs and headed out into the campground area where luvs showed us how a real man makes a fire. More drinking and BSing till we decided to call it a night (I have no idea what time that was).
The next morning my head hurt a little. We all got some breakfast, packed it up and hit the road. I took a faster route home and made it in about 3 hrs instead of 6. All in all it turned out to be a great weekend.
I agree that the colors were not spectacular compared to some seasons we've had here and we have a couple more weeks of increasing color I think. My timing on these wasn't very good as the sun was high and a lot of my shots were washed in light.
The summer has been pretty wet here which is not normally a good setup for fall colors.
It is good to get out for a ride and enjoy time with some good friends though.
Wifey and I are headed to the Cherohala/Dragon area this morning from our temporary N. Virginia home. Might skip across the Blue Ridge for a few miles. Haven't been on it since '09. :beer: