10/6 -- On to Tennessee

I had hoped to find some park along the road to stop a hike for a bit, to break up all the driving, but the weather report was for nasty storms as the day went on so that went out the window and we were open to another serendipitous adventure. We woke up ridiculously early again and were on the road before 7:30am.

Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia

As we got on the highway, Jim spied a sign for the Blue Ridge Parkway. By the time I found it on the map and realized it was a good idea, we were long past the exit for it, but it didn't seem like it should be that hard to find, so we mapped out the closest crossing in the direction we were going. This involved driving east through southern Roanoke as the rush hour got going, and my grand plan DID locate the parkway, but the closest route did not actually INTERSECT the parkway, but drove under it. OOOPS! The only reasonable way to get there was to backtrack, and we did manage to find it and it was totally wonderful. It reminded me of the kind of roads we must have driven cross-country when I was a kid -- two lanes, narrow grassy shoulders and trees about three feet back from the road. WOW! There were several scenic overlooks, but only one that really grabbed me where we stopped. It slowed down our westward progress, but it was worth it! We also saw a lot of decrepit old barns and two enormous hills of pumpkins. Unfortunately, the pumpkin photo eluded us, but it was an amazing sight.

View from the parkway

View from parkway overlook

Lovely old barn

We had the advantage today of gaining an hour as we crossed into the central time zone. Originally I had thought we would get to Nashville, but before our Blue Ridge Parkway jaunt, looking at our start time, we changed our objective to Memphis. AFTER the jaunt, Memphis seemed like a stretch and the hotel booking apps I used showed the hotel options for tonight were slim to none. No idea what is happening there, but everyone else got there first, so we changed our destination again to Jackson, about halfway from Nashville to Memphis.

We did find the thunderstorms too, and drove through some very heavy squalls. It didn't seem like it would let up much, so we found a restaurant and whiled away the last 4 nasty squalls as we were having a lovely meal. Fortunately, that was the end of the rain.

Virginia and Tennessee have been lovely states to drive through, with lots of hills and trees and greenery. It seems like it is getting flatter as we head west, which makes sense as we leave the Allegheny Mountains and approach the great plains.