Road Trip - day 15 - Friday

Knowing that we were probaly going to spend hours on the Blue Ridge
Parkway, we stopped for some sandwiches to take along. The alternate
highway looked better than staying on 81 but probably lost us some time.
Once out of Johnson City, we hit some reaal nice scenery marred by
mobile and modular homes surrounded by junk and rusting cars. Still, as
we rounded Watauga Lake the view was great. Some time later we finally
arrived in Boone NC where we entered the Blue Ridge Parkway. What I
expected was a lonely road winding through a National Park with no
civilization in site. Actually that's not the case at all. It does
meander along the crest of the mountain range often offering
breathtaking views on both sides, but just as often offered off ramps to
other roadways, some parelleling the road mere feet away. The Blue Ridge
Mountains live up to their name as well, mountains in the distance seem
to be various shades of blue. While its not the Grand Canyon, there are
still some views from dizzying heights, like the one from the picnic
table we had our lunch at!
About 3 we took a road that would put us back on route 81 and our
eventual goal for the evening, Harrisburg and the Kuntz's house.
We can't help but notice, as we get closer and closer to home, that
folks here are nuch more reluctant to yield the passing lane. There
always seems to be one more car they can pass... Out west people pass,
and move to the right. Sure, they have lots of hotdogs (we'll call them
cowboys out there) but at least they try to be courteous. Oklahoma had
the largest percentage of unskilled drivers that I noted out west. Put
some of them on the highway and they drive like they're NASCAR drivers!
The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful, but we did enjoy watching
the caravan of mini-vans, all liscensed New York, that were traveling
bumper to bumper in the passing lane, as we crossed into Pennsylvania. I
noticed one of the women driving was hunched over the steering wheel
looking panicked... I guess they were afraid to lose each other.
We made it to Harrisburg by 9:20.

Bruce and Deb
http://rosey462.blogspot.com/
notsosilentbruce on AOL IM