Reisinger Road Trip Day 6: The Blue Ridge Parkway

We headed out this morning to the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway just outside of Asheville. This center features arts and crafts from local North Carolina artists. The kids had to buy souvenirs of course. They'd brought their own money though-- I wasn't going to let them use ours. ;-). Joshua bought a pedometer, Rebecca got a finger puppet of an owl, and Christina got a red bird that chirped when you pushed it's stomach. Gabriel didn't buy anything. ;-). A local potter had his potter's wheel all set up and was busy making jugs and bowls while people watched. The kids watched him at work for a good 15 minutes.

David bought a CD of bluegrass music, and I bought a cookbook, The Best of the Best from North Carolina. I love cookbooks (I have too many already), and I usually buy one whenever we're traveling. We put the bluegrass music on while we drove out to Chattanooga on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

I could do a entire post on just the Blue Ridge Parkway. This very scenic highway was constructed at the start of the Great Depression, and finished in 1980. There are numerous places to stop and look at the views. You can also go hiking, biking, and camping all along the route. Good thing I took my Dramamine after breakfast, because the road went up, down, around, and the drop offs were very steep. (Despite being easy on the brakes, our brake pads are starting to squeal quite a bit, and David thinks we'll need to get them replaced before we get home). The kids were impressed by the scenery, but not as much as David and I. Here are just a few of the spectacular pictures I took.

I'm sure the foliage in the fall is incredible, and the highway is probably crawling with traffic at that time of year. We stopped for lunch on Mount Pisgah, (elevation 5721 feet), and ate on the edge of a pretty meadow. This must be a migration route for butterflies-- we saw literally hundreds of them on the highway and in the meadow. Here's where we had lunch (a bonus at this rest stop was picnic tables and clean restrooms :-).

You can only drive about 45 mph on the Blue Ridge Parkway, so we got off it just north of the Georgia border, and took US route 74 to Chattanooga. We drove right next to the Ocoee River, and hordes of people were out on the water kayaking, boating, and white water rafting. CCL may very well have conventions in Asheville in the future. If so, we definitely would like to head out here again and do some hiking and rafting. The kid just aren't old enough yet.

After a long, 4 hour drive (and half a container of breath mints fed to Gabriel to keep him happy) we finally got to Chattanooga and checked into the Holiday Inn Chattanooga Choo Choo (again!). This time, we had a room in building 4, on the fourth floor, and a great view of the pool. We'll have to check it out tomorrow for sure.

David didn't want to eat on the hotel grounds so he found a local pizza joint on the internet, and we ended up at Lupi's for dinner. It was very good, and just down the street in downtown Chattanooga. Back to the hotel, bed for the kids, posting on my blog for me, and David is just messin' around on his laptop.

We plan to take a ride on a train tomorrow, so "Choo-Choo," until then!