Travelogue, Part II
Dec. 1st, 2003 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rscAnd so we say goodbye to beautiful Unincorporated Stone Mountain...
I had mentioned sometime during the weekend my vexation at discovering while packing for this trip that I had left my binoculars in Gloucester, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bratman had most generously insisted that I borrow his for the trip. So I was equipped for any long-distance viewing that might be necessary. (I should remember to ship them back to him sometime soon.)
At first the prospects for much of any kind of viewing weren't exactly promising; the weather had changed during Sunday night, and it was raining as we headed northeast on I-85, and the forecasts we'd seen for North Carolina in Sunday' s paper weren't encouraging. We did catch an Atlanta forecast on the radio as we were heading out that said it was going to clear later in the day, which made us feel somewhat better.
The plan was to drive into Great Smokies National Park first, and maybe get up to its highest peak at Clingmans Dome, and then to drive as much of the Blue Ridge Parkway as time allowed over the remainder of Monday and Tuesday. We did see patches of blue sky here and there as we drove north, but by the time we got to Cherokee, NC (the southern terminus of the Parkway, and the entrance point for the Smokies), they had pretty much vanished, although the rain had mostly stopped.
We found a restaurant in Cherokee for lunch -- a very nice piece of grilled trout on an otherwise unpromising menu -- and then decided to brave the Newfound Gap road into the Smokies, let the weather do what it might. There wasn't much to be seen as we climbed toward the gap, which was pretty well wrapped in cloud, although we could see hints of brightness above. We turned off on the 7-mile side road to Clingmans Dome, but after we'd gone about half a mile we noticed that the stuff flying through the air was actually snow, and visibility was negligible, and with another 6+ miles and 1000 feet of elevation to go we decided that this wasn't a very good idea, so we took advantage of the first overlook to turn back, and continued on the main road to the parking lot at the Gap itself (on the NC-Tennessee line). It was still snowing, and it was windy and cold, butjwg decided to take some pictures of the ghosts of trees that were all of the view that was visible. Once he had done that, I noticed that there was a sign to public restrooms, and following Robert's First Rule of Travel ("Pee when you can") I decided to take advantage of it. Once that was taken care of, we noticed that although it was still snowing, and still windy, and still cold, it was definitely brighter than before, so we hung around for a bit, and lo and behold the cloud and the snow all blew away, the sun came out, and we had wide vistas of mountains in all directions, with streaks of cloud wafting through them.
Greatly encouraged, we hung around for a few more minutes, and then headed back down to start our drive north. The first 13 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway were closed (as we had learned from their website earlier) for bridge repairs, so we had to take US 19 across the Cherokee Reservation to join the Parkway at Soco Gap; but as we approached the junction the fog started to close in again. We decided we would go for a while anyway, and if it showed no signs of clearing we would get down off the ridge and do something else. After we'd driven about five miles through more or less impenetrable fog we noticed that the wind had come up again, and the veils of fog were starting to shift, and in another couple of minutes it was brilliantly clear, and (except for a couple of small patches of cloud that we drove through later that day) it stayed that way for the remainder of the drive.
If the weather is decent, the Blue Ridge Parkway is a beautiful drive. There's an overlook every mile or so (or at least it seems that way), and even when there's no place to stop and get out the road shows you one infinite mountain vista after another (which is fine if you're a passenger -- it's really better if the driver doesn't pay too much attention to the view). We stopped at quite a few of the overlooks (if we'd stopped at every one we'd probably still be there), and John took a bunch of pictures, some of which he'll presumably post, although for some reason the ones he took the most trouble over were some shots of the rusty bolts holding one of the railings together.
Conveniently, it started to get dark as we were approaching Asheville, where we were due to spend the night. Somewhat less conveniently, we somehow contrived to be on the east side of the ridge at sunset, although from the look of the sky the still-intermittent clouds may have obscured the crucial part of the horizon anyway. In any case, we headed down off the Parkway to catch the highway into Asheville, and after a bit of cell-phone conversation succeeded in finding our B & B, of which more in the next installment.
[To be continued]
I had mentioned sometime during the weekend my vexation at discovering while packing for this trip that I had left my binoculars in Gloucester, and
bratman had most generously insisted that I borrow his for the trip. So I was equipped for any long-distance viewing that might be necessary. (I should remember to ship them back to him sometime soon.)At first the prospects for much of any kind of viewing weren't exactly promising; the weather had changed during Sunday night, and it was raining as we headed northeast on I-85, and the forecasts we'd seen for North Carolina in Sunday' s paper weren't encouraging. We did catch an Atlanta forecast on the radio as we were heading out that said it was going to clear later in the day, which made us feel somewhat better.
The plan was to drive into Great Smokies National Park first, and maybe get up to its highest peak at Clingmans Dome, and then to drive as much of the Blue Ridge Parkway as time allowed over the remainder of Monday and Tuesday. We did see patches of blue sky here and there as we drove north, but by the time we got to Cherokee, NC (the southern terminus of the Parkway, and the entrance point for the Smokies), they had pretty much vanished, although the rain had mostly stopped.
We found a restaurant in Cherokee for lunch -- a very nice piece of grilled trout on an otherwise unpromising menu -- and then decided to brave the Newfound Gap road into the Smokies, let the weather do what it might. There wasn't much to be seen as we climbed toward the gap, which was pretty well wrapped in cloud, although we could see hints of brightness above. We turned off on the 7-mile side road to Clingmans Dome, but after we'd gone about half a mile we noticed that the stuff flying through the air was actually snow, and visibility was negligible, and with another 6+ miles and 1000 feet of elevation to go we decided that this wasn't a very good idea, so we took advantage of the first overlook to turn back, and continued on the main road to the parking lot at the Gap itself (on the NC-Tennessee line). It was still snowing, and it was windy and cold, but
jwg decided to take some pictures of the ghosts of trees that were all of the view that was visible. Once he had done that, I noticed that there was a sign to public restrooms, and following Robert's First Rule of Travel ("Pee when you can") I decided to take advantage of it. Once that was taken care of, we noticed that although it was still snowing, and still windy, and still cold, it was definitely brighter than before, so we hung around for a bit, and lo and behold the cloud and the snow all blew away, the sun came out, and we had wide vistas of mountains in all directions, with streaks of cloud wafting through them.Greatly encouraged, we hung around for a few more minutes, and then headed back down to start our drive north. The first 13 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway were closed (as we had learned from their website earlier) for bridge repairs, so we had to take US 19 across the Cherokee Reservation to join the Parkway at Soco Gap; but as we approached the junction the fog started to close in again. We decided we would go for a while anyway, and if it showed no signs of clearing we would get down off the ridge and do something else. After we'd driven about five miles through more or less impenetrable fog we noticed that the wind had come up again, and the veils of fog were starting to shift, and in another couple of minutes it was brilliantly clear, and (except for a couple of small patches of cloud that we drove through later that day) it stayed that way for the remainder of the drive.
If the weather is decent, the Blue Ridge Parkway is a beautiful drive. There's an overlook every mile or so (or at least it seems that way), and even when there's no place to stop and get out the road shows you one infinite mountain vista after another (which is fine if you're a passenger -- it's really better if the driver doesn't pay too much attention to the view). We stopped at quite a few of the overlooks (if we'd stopped at every one we'd probably still be there), and John took a bunch of pictures, some of which he'll presumably post, although for some reason the ones he took the most trouble over were some shots of the rusty bolts holding one of the railings together.
Conveniently, it started to get dark as we were approaching Asheville, where we were due to spend the night. Somewhat less conveniently, we somehow contrived to be on the east side of the ridge at sunset, although from the look of the sky the still-intermittent clouds may have obscured the crucial part of the horizon anyway. In any case, we headed down off the Parkway to catch the highway into Asheville, and after a bit of cell-phone conversation succeeded in finding our B & B, of which more in the next installment.
[To be continued]
