The South Riding RV Travels

296

28th May 2007 - Blue Ridge Parkway VA

We would have liked to spend more time in Williamsburg and Jamestown but we came up against Memorial Day. This is a major holiday in the US and all the campsites (particularly in popular places) fill up for this long weekend. So we headed west to Charlottesville VA to spend the weekend with friends.

I found a leaflet which listed all the deaths from all the wars Memorial Day commemorates. More probably died in the Civil War than all the other wars the US has been in put together. It was interesting also because of the relatively small number killed in Vietnam (2.7 million Vietnamese were killed).  It is worth noting that all American totals are only military, American civilians are rarely involved because the US has not been invaded, and American civil war statistics usually only include Union soldiers. Until recently well under half the deaths were in combat. Total American deaths in WW II were 0.53% of the total. France lost 1.6million in WWI and another 560000 in WWII. (Sources LSU)
WarDatesDeaths ('000s)
Revolutionary 1775-83 4.4
1812 1812-5 2.2
Mexican 1861-5 13.3
Civil War 1861-5 557+
Spanish American 1898 2.4
WW I 1917-8 116.5
WW II 1941-6 405.4
Korea 1950-3 33.6
Vietnam 1964-73 58.2
Persian Gulf 1990-1 0.2

It was more pleasant to contemplate the scenery. Our friends took us for a walk on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The rhododendrons were supposed to be in full bloom but they weren't quite as plentiful as we had hoped for. We never found them en masse but we did find a few blooms. They varied in maturity depending upon which side of the ridge we were.
Here and there we did find a few open flowers but they do not seem to be taking over like they have done on some Welsh hillsides.
Although there are established paths, this is still almost a virgin wilderness and trees are not removed unless they really do completely block the paths. It is also fairly dark because of the density of the canopy.
Where there was sunshine breaking through, the mountain laurel were blooming in profusion and quite making up for the rhododendrons we had missed.
There are just so many florets on each flower head and the colour shades are so subtle, the photographs just do not do it justice..
But the impressive things from the ridge are the views to both north and south even though the air quality is not wonderful and the more distant hills are often shrouded in haze.

But this was just a passing visit to the ridge since we had travelled down during our previous trip. Now we were about to head across and west into Kentucky.