View along the parkway outside Asheville
Today we took a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We first drove about 25 miles up and up to the Pisgah Inn. We stopped to see the view over valleys of trees and across mountain tops. All along the way, trees are very green with new leaves, and dogwood trees are blooming with beautiful white flowers. As we climbed up to over 6000 feet, some of the trees at the top were still brown. They haven’t leafed out yet. The temperature dropped from 75 to 66 degrees.
One of five tunnels we went through
A T-shirt in the gift shop
Another T-shirt
We drove on a few miles more, then turned off to go down to Waynesville. We picked up a picnic dinner of fried chicken and extras, then headed off to see the elk.
The cut off road to see the elk
(notice the width and lack of shoulder)
There is an area not far from here that is part of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.
Where the Elk are being repopulated
The government has reintroduced a herd of elk here, and every elk is tagged to keep track of the herd’s growth. We had to drive on some very twisty roads to get to the area where we could see the elk.
One of original 52 which have locator collars
At first we just saw a few, and then more and more came into the grassy meadow. When we drove to another area further down the road, we saw several bull elk, with velvet antlers. Apparently, this area was once a small settlement. We saw the remains of a house that was built in 1860 and a school and church built in 1903. The elk actually wandered in and out of an old barn, and up on the porch of the old house. We also saw wild turkeys and deer in the forest here.
Sana trying to pat the elk
Those aren't earrings, but tags
The boys were off by themselves
It started to rain, so we started home. We missed the real downpour, but were surprised to see a beautiful, intensely colored rainbow on the road downhill. We saw the entire arch, and even a faint secondary rainbow. Great way to end the day!
3/4 of the rainbow we saw
(too close to photograph 100%)
total miles we drove today= 0
miles driven by Dwight= 85
No comments:
Post a Comment