Cool Music on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Our previous blogpost mentioned our first frustrating day on the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP) when, due to road closures we regarded as unnecessary, we managed to only drive about 10 miles on the Parkway in the whole day (between Linville Falls and Blowing Rock). Since then, we have spent two more much more successful days driving the BRP, after getting back on it at Deep Gap near Boone. We had spent the night in this town, named after Daniel, the famous explorer and good all round mountain man, and we ate at Troy's, a classic American diner.

After two days, we arrived at Charlottesville VA at the northern end of the BRP, having done several hundred beautiful miles on it. The road closures in North Carolina persisted, and we hap to skip parts of the Parkway, but the posted closures in Virginia seem to have evaporated. The closed stretches may have been opened in the last day or so, and frankly, we could see no reason for the closures anyway, no ice, no snow and no signs of grading.

The first day was a sunny day, so we had beautiful views over the blue ridges of the mountains [photo]. The road is so peaceful at this time of year, we had it to ourselves, hardly seeing another vehicle, and no commercial vehicles are allowed on it, so no trucks. It is an absolute delight to drive, and the scenery, numerous overlooks, wildlife, and side trips are a real bonus. This road is so attractive, that it increases our distress at the inexplicable closures. After a night in Roanoke/Salem VA, the second day started clear but we had some rain and at the end there was a heavy fog, which only enhanced the beauty of the mountains, but didn't do anything for the long distance views! Banks of fog swept down from the peaks into the valleys.

Our enjoyment was enhanced by the very cool bluegrass music which was being transmitted around the Blue Ridge. A pleasant change from the rantings of shock-jocks on talk radio about the Presidential primaries!

The interesting thing is the "public" roads running near the BRP have villages and cabins as well as the traffic on them, and you can see them quite clearly from many places on the BRP. It is easy to pop off to see things and pop back on again.

The forest is made up of maple trees and firs, and there are rhododendrons growing freely, they must be a beautful sight in the spring when they are in flower. We made a few excursions on the walking tracks which are well marked and obviously well used in the summer when the parkway is heavily used. There are plenty of white tailed deer to see [photo] and we saw turkeys and birds, but no bears unfortunately.

One of the most interesting things along the way is the extremely photogenic Mabry Mill [photo], and a village set out in the style of the mountain people who lived in the area, in the early 1900's.

We made a detour into Floyd, to visit the General Store there: it is a place where music and dancing happens every Friday night. Although it was only Tuesday, we thought we would have a look in, but it is only open 4 days a week in winter, and we were out of luck. The best we could do was peer in the window, and look at the entertainment list for next Friday. Lots of Bluegrass music!

Another detour took us to see 3 covered bridges. There are only a handful in Virginia, and the 3 we saw (one from a distance, it's on private property) are well preserved and registered by the Historical Society, we were pleased to see [photo].

Another side trip took us into Buena Vista, a small town which looks as though it has fallen on very hard times. We had a nice chat to the lady in the cafe there, over lunch. She has entertainment in the cafe every 3rd Friday night. Live bands of course, and a variety of music. The purpose of this visit was to see the Country Store there, but to our dismay it had closed some time ago. The lady from the cafe said she hoped someone would get it going again someday, she seems to be thinking about it herself. This seemed very sad, we hope the town manages a comeback, it certainly is on the bluegrass trail and could do with an injection of visitors. We also met the policeman of this small town, just as he closed the road back to the Parkway because of a truck accident. He was very friendly and he told us of a secret alternative way back up the ridge which saved us many miles. The secret way was very steep and windy, but paved all the way - luckily no trucks use this road. Our Subaru handled it with aplomb.

Again we had cause to be disappointed with the commercial appropriation of natural scenic attractions. We didn't even bother to make the detour to Natural Bridge after reading that a stiff entry fee is charged, and realising that it would probably be closed and locked up anyway for winter.

Why are the attractions on this road closed in winter? Maybe it's because the road itself is not kept open reliably. There's a destructive circular argument in here somewhere - the attractions are closed because the road is not maintained because the attractions don't have enough visitors? Anyway, we were disappointed that the Linville Falls visitors centres, the Blue Ridge Music Centre, the Mabry Mill shop (although the site was still accessible), Virginia's Explore Centre (and the historical exhibits were behind locked gates), the Peaks of Otter visitors centre were all closed. No doubt others were closed too, but we didn't go in to find out. We feel there is enough winter traffic on the BRP to encourage more openings, and that this traffic would increase if they maintained the road. That said, we did thoroughly enjoy the relative solitude on the road! Luckily the Folk Art Centre visitors centre near Asheville NC was open, because this is where we got our best map of the Parkway.