Description: The Blue Ridge Parkway truly does seem to ride along the tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains as it picks up where Skyline Drive finishes. I didn't get to see much of it, but I do know that what I saw was very much worth the drive. My family and I had hiked the Spy Rock trail earlier that morning, and figured we would go eat lunch and then drive back the Parkway. We did ahve to travel quite a ways to get to anywhere for lunch, as it is a small back woods area with very little town presence. We did find a Ruby Tuesday restaurant open for lunch and so we pulled in, ate, and then took off for the parkway. On the way there, we saw the natural bridge park area, and although we did not stop, other people we talked to said it was worth the people and the hike. We finally got onto the parkway at about 4pm and started driving north. I loved it because there were not tons of people. There were several times that we stopped and got out by ourselves.
Granted, this fall was not spectacular in the mountains of Virginia--it was just brown--but the views are still spectacular. You can see for miles and miles and miles, and I think perhaps what I liked more than anything was the interaction between the national park and the towns just out of the park. Blue Ridge Parkway feels much different than the Great Smoky Mountains because of the fact that Blue Ridge and SHenandoah National Park are build around the road, or the civilization interacting with nature instead of just the nature of the Great Smokies. We stopped at one particular pullout and waited for sunset. Again, the colors were not spectacular, but the sunset turned the mountains in the distance pink. It was a very relaxing end to a day.
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