| The Blue Ridge Parkway is a 469 mile road running along a crest
of the Blue Ridge mountains which are part of the Appalachians. The road
is managed by the National Parks service and has a 35 mph speed limit (it
would be hard to do more). There are many overlooks and gaps with parking
spaces. This is much higher than Skyline Drive which we travelled earlier,
reaching as high as 6000 ft. |  |
 | Being
further south more of the trees had burst into leaf, so it appeared much
greener even at the higher elevations. However the weather was
deteriorating and visibility was much reduced from the possible 40-50
miles to 10 or 15 and later (and higher) you could measure it in feet! |
| One of the reasons that the mountains are called the Blue Ridge
is because of the haze which tends to make them look more blue than they
really are. As you get higher and find clouds in the valleys below you you
can see where the name Great Smoky mountains comes from. These two areas
merge along this road. |  |
 | It
is also an area renowned for its waterfalls but many of these can only be
viewed after hiking quite lengthy distances along the trails. This one we
caught from the road just before the mist really descended and the weather
became much worse with hail the size of marbles. |
| At the highest point on the road visibility was measured in feet
and the rain squalls were torrential and frequently of ice, making driving
treacherous. It improved as we came back down to lower elevations near the
end of the Parkway. This is in a Cherokee reservation and we stopped at an
excellent cultural museum in the town of Cherokee. Then we continued on
into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and its campsite at Elkmont. |
 |
 | The
Cherokee people originally lived in this area but many were forcibly
transferred to Oklahoma on a walk which became known as the "Trail of
tears". Many of them died from hardship and sicknesses introduced by
the Europeans. A small band remained in the Smokies and eventually were
given this area as a reservation. This is a picture of a chieftain known
as Sequoyah who was famous for devising a syllabary of the Cherokee
language so that their history could be written down for the first time.
The museum also had a bible translated into Cherokee. They became known as
one of the civilized tribes. Perhaps it's a shame the white men were not
more civilized. |
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