The MisterEd 8000; Grande Tour of America

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Asheville, NC & The Blueridge Parkway

This morning started after a liesurely breakfast at about 8:30.  The day had dawned foggy and fairly humid and a cruise through historic downtown Asheville wasn't able to show the city's real charm.


Part of Pack Square, downtown Asheville, NC


The Asheville City Building

Asheville's a really neat little city.  I'm most definately going back for a visit when I can dedicate more time to exploring.  The city is rich with pre-depression architecture and is the home of the Biltmore Estate.  I photographed a number of buildings, but unfortunately, it was so foggy that most of the shots are not usable.

I went up and on to the Blueridge Parkway from Town Mountain Road just north of Asheville.


The hills near Asheville, NC - from the Blueridge Parkway, milepost 376

This was my first visit ever to the Blueridge Parkway.  Entering the Parkway just north of the main part of Asheville City, I came on just south of the Craggy Gardens somewhere around milepost 385.  The sun had been up for a while, but the valley fog was just starting to burn off.  Breathtaking is all I can muster to describe the view, the solitude, the beauty of the area.


The same area near MP 376 - click on the image for a larger scrollable version


North of Mount Mitchell near MP340



Just south of MP305

The Parkway is unique among roads.  Speed limit is 45 unless posted otherwise.  All entering and crossing roads stop for the Parkway, and there's few of them - it's really a limited access road.  There are no stop signs.  No traffic lights.  No railroad crossings.  No commercial traffic is allowed, so there's NO TRUCKS!!  The road doesn't mingle at all with urban traffic - it bypasses it.  It took me several hours on the Parkway to realize all of this.  If you have enough fuel, you can if you want to, drive the full 469 mile length of this road and never, ever have to stop for anything.  Of course, doing this would mean you'd miss some of the most spectacular scenery in the east.

The Blueridge Parkway is all about stopping, slowing down, realxing and enjoying the view for the sake of the view.

The Parkway has something else too - twisties!  The road is not demanding in a real sense and you don't ride a motorcycle to its maximum limits by any means, but there's plenty of nice curves and turns to carve along the way.  It's a fairly popular motorcycling road too, if the number of riders out today is any indication.

After pea-soup fog and rain going over Mt. Mitchell, the weather cleared out nicely for the rest of the day.  I stopped for lunch at Doughton Park around MP240 and continued on into Virginia.  Interestingly, the Parkway in the southern part of Virginia could be, if you didn't know any better, just another country road.  There are very few overlooks, almost no attractions along the road, and the locals use the Parkway to travel unhindered by stop signs and commerical traffic from place to place.  Some day, I'll do the northen end of the Parkway from Shenandoah.  Not this trip, though.

I left the parkway at around 3:00 PM at MP177, The Meadows of Dan, and headed east on US58.  I hadn't made it all that far when a thunderstorm stopped me for about 45 minutes in Spencer, Virginia.  I rolled in to South Boston at about 6:25 PM.


An example of how I park the bike at night - well lit, visible from my room, locked.

I guess some places have a bit more of a problem with some things - this was a sign in my bathroom this evening:

People actually steal the TOOTHBRUSH HOLDERS!!????

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