Blue Ridge Park Way

Day: 28
Date: 29/4
City: Sparta, North Carolina
Miles ridden: 249
Cumulative miles: 1219

Today we got up earlier and met for breakfast at 8:00, then we left for the Blue Ridge parkway around 10:30.  The speed limit was 45mph, which was faster than the day before. We once more rode through clouds, but this time we also got to see the clouds from above at a lookout! The roads were just perfect, long bends for miles and miles and the landscape was spectacular.

Isn’t that nice?




After a short break we continued on, just enjoying the ride. Later that day we hit a detour which brought us to Sparta just at the end of the day. We booked into a motel – thanks to some serious haggling by Val we got the rooms cheaper after presenting a RAA membership card.  Who knew the discounts carried over /this/ far? 😉
We had missed diner time in the local restaurant next to the motel, so in the end we went to a Mexican Restaurant called Mis Arados . This turned out to be a great find – the food was great and cheap! Back in the room, when we tried to plan the next days. We soon realised that the museum in Magi Valley was closed on Tue and Wednesday – of course these were the days we would be there. Will see what we can do about it tomorrow.

Day: 29
Date: 30/4
City: Ashville, North Carolina
Miles ridden: 161
Cumulative miles: 1380

We decided to skip Maggi Valley, so we had a late start today, leaving around 11:00. Blue Ridge Parkway was great, nice curves and beautiful landscape, like a mixture out of the Great Ocean Road in Victoria and some of the mountain roads in Tasmania. We had a couple of stops at some nice places:

The best stop for Bjoern was on the top of a mountain, where you could see the 4 or 5 smaller mountain ranges in the far distance. The lookouts are often crooked and stopping there proved to be hazardous to one of our bikes in particular. Val had our first ding on the trip when the bike tipped over on a stop next to a curb. She and Victoria- her bike – (Brian’s is called Victor by the way 🙂 ) got some bruises, but hopefully that will all pass soon.

This is shortly after the topple; all picked up and ready to go again. Way to go Val!




We enjoyed the remainder of the day

 

Note the Wombat and the Diddles in the picture! 🙂

The cloudy weather prevented us from seeing everything clearly, but it was still beautiful.

For lunch we went out of the park and found a place that did sandwich subs – baguette like things – quite tasty.

As a side note this sign in the loo caught Bjorn’s attention and made him laugh out loud:


After some more awesome scenery,

we arrived in Ashville around 17:30. We found nice accommodation and had a nice Mexican meal with huge beer for me and a Margarita for Sigrid.

Next morning we caught up with Mike,

and then we continued along the parkway. By chance we met Mike again at the end of the parkway and that night and stayed together in Bryson city.

This is the visitor centre at the end of the Blue Ridge Parkway


One exiting thing remains on this leg of the trip – the ride of the Tail of Dragon Road…

 

…which will happen tomorrow 🙂

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