October 21, 2017: A drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway . . .
Read MoreMy friend, Danita, and I took a trip to Cherokee, North Carolina today. Our plan was to first stop at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center at the southern entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Visitor Center is home to the Mountain Farm Museum, a collection of historic buildings gathered from across the park that give visitors an idea of what life was like on a mountain farm a century ago.
After checking out the museum, we would then get on the Blue Ridge Parkway, the entrance for which is next door to the Visitor Center. The Blue Ridge Parkway is a 469 mile long scenic highway that connects Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Cherokee with Shenandoah National Park near Waynesboro, Virginia. The name "Blue Ridge" is a reference to the mountains on which it is built. The plan for today was to explore the first 75 miles of the Parkway from Cherokee to Asheville. We picked this day in hopes of seeing the beautiful fall colors