The Blue Ridge Parkway~~1645 miles in

When I was planning the route for this trip, I knew that one of my must do’s was the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I remember vaguely as a boy coming through this area with my parents and loving the drops just off of the edge of the road and the views that were absolutely spectacular.  Having done this route now 20+ years later, I can tell you that it is still just as spectacular as ever.  I would suggest that everyone needs to run at least 50 miles of this road at some point in their lives.  The views were spectacular and the vistas were awe inspiring.

The following perspective was one of a hundred views into the valley which were beautiful.

I will also be posting some video shot as I was traveling through the parkway in a couple of days as I compile and edit the video, some of the shots were a little shaky, The following shot sequence of the valley is representative of what every turn gave way to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only snag that occurred during my ride in the parkway is that eventually I ran into a huge thunderstorm that crashed into the side of the mountain.  I captured the cloud that started the whole sequence of events on the video.  Now at first I just thought to myself that I was heading into a nasty little storm that I figured I could ride through.  I pulled over and put on my rain gear in anticipation of some heavy rains.  I severely underestimated this storm, however. 

Upon cresting one of the mountain peaks I saw the storm clouds gathering around the bend.  Now what was different about these clouds, was that instead of the usual grey and black coloration that I see in Florida, these clouds were red and orange along the bottom fringe.  It literally looked like fire and brimstone were about to rain down from the heavens, suddenly all those billboards about salvation started to make sense! 

As I hit the rain drops and the first cloud front, I thought to myself, “Man do these drops really hurt!”  Now I had rode through some tough stuff before and while annoying, it had never hurt.  Then I started to notice that as these drops hit my tank I started to hear distinct pings and clincks…upon putting all these facts together, I realized, “Holy !@#$, I am am in the middle of a HAIL STORM!!!” 

So I pulled over and huddled with other bikers as we waited for those pesky ice pellets to subside.  Now getting caught in a hail storm at 5500 feet is an experience.  I did not make it to Raleigh that night as I had planned, by the time I had made it out of the parkway my hands were blue and I figured maybe I can just crash in Asheville for the night.

~ by coachcrew on June 29, 2008.