My favorite ride: Blue Ridge Parkway North from Asheville.

[Road Ready]

I picked up a friend and headed north on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Recently reopened, the road was more crowded than usual for a Sunday morning, but still wide intervals between cars and bicycles.

 

The Oak leaves were starting to unfurl at the lower altitudes, all golden colored. The spring ephemerals were blooming and the sky was a vivid blue except for the smoke of far off-brushfires. We passed one stretch that had recently burned. I made a note to myself to stop by a year from now to look for Morels.

 

We switched drivers at the Big Butt / Point Misery trailhead and my guest had his first experience driving a Seven. His first car had been an old Porsche C that eventually rusted out on him in New England. Salt is really bad for steel.

 

If you're planning to be in the Asheville area in your Seven or similar, let me know and possibly we could blat up to Mt. Mitchel together or something.... To the south, the Graveyard Fields trailhead is under improvement; that section of the parkway is still closed for maintenance anyway.

 

The speed limit on the parkway is 45 mph but in 30 years of driving sections around here I've never seen any enforcement. The road is extremely well-engineered and the views are stupendous. You can loaf along in 4th gear and enjoy the experience. The wild turkey on the side of the road that eyeballed me didn't know what to make of my little car.

[sevenup]

What a great road that is....we typically get on the blue ridge at nc 276 out of waynesville and go north or south depending on our whim that day...seems like we usually end up at the inn at

balsam mountain for lunch or dinner...