The North is Calling and We Must Go... via the Scenic Route

We've explored half of what North Carolina has to offer, so it's time to broaden our travels! To the east lies ocean, west is backtracking, south is hot, so that just leaves the wide open north for us to explore. And what better way to travel than the scenic route? 

The Blue Ridge Parkway

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a 469 mile drive traveling up the Appalachian Mountains. It's specifically engineered so you can't see the road from far away, and we definitely noticed this. The drive was an amazing experience. You feel like you're in uninterrupted forests, like you're somewhere no one else has been and yet you're on a paved road the whole way. 

Pictures are worth a thousand words or something, so here.

                                                 Half Way!

 

We found an absolutely lovely inn with a great view of the mountains!

The end!! Or.... maybe not?

Shenandoah Sky Line Drive

As it turns out, about 10 feet after the BRP ends, the 100+ mile scenic drive through Shenandoah National Park.

Fancy Gap for Fancy Chaps

We saw south and we saw middle, so it was time to see a bit of north North Carolina. So far north, in fact, we accidentally hit Virginia.  Deep in the forests somewhere on the Blue Ridge Parkway we found a great Airbnb. And I mean deep in the forest, the nearest city in any direction was 30 minutes away and a state over.

This place had one of our favorite features yet: Tree Porch!

Basically this porch made us very happy, so mostly I'll just post pictures of that. 

We also hit our 3rd golf course for dinner. We just wanted to find places to eat and 3 dinners in a row we accidentally wound up at different golf courses. We weren't trying, we were actually trying to not go to one, sneaky blighters. Can't beat that view though!

We also saw a neat historic cabin though, over a hundred years old. The woman who lived there moved in at 16 yrs old and lived until like 102. She was a midwife and traveled around on horseback for years to help bring sweet babies into the world.