The foliage is dropping, it has its own beauty when you can see through the tree trunks, light shining and the wind swirling the leaves all around . A young buck was so close on the road, he darted into the woods on hearing us approach. There is lots of debris on the road, branches as well as leaves from last nights wind. Soon we were seeing cars coming toward us with fairly heavy snow on them. We concluded they must have overnighted somewhere in the Park .
At about 1098 meters traffic stopped. We could see an ambulance, a police car and a school bus ahead. At this point there was also a lot more snow on the sides of the road.
After waiting to see what was going on a Ranger was approaching each vehicle in front of us and having a chat. We could hear her tell the car in front of us they had to turn around and go back the way they came. It was our turn next! We were asked about our vehicle....4wheel Drive, all season tires. Then the police officer was at our window......assessing our capabilities and comfort level with continuing on. The officer upon asking where we were from......Vancouver....said, oh you are used to this, if you were from Florida I’d be worried. The school bus had hit black ice and started to slide and was partially blocking the road. The bus was full of kids which they were going to unload and wait till the sun melted the ice enough for them to continue. They allowed us to pass!
Further on in the park we climbed a little higher, deer and a buck jumping across the road beside and in front of us or nibbling on the grass as we came around a corner. The road dropped thousands of feet on either side of the road as we made our way, breathtaking but a bit unnerving with the snow. Descending we decided to take a turn off to get something to eat......a sign directing us to Steelers Tavern sounded good, 5/6 miles, on a winding road......we finally found it, it was a b&b!!! A guy was raking leaves in the yard, I asked if they served food.....ha! No...it’s a B&b they serve breakfast! I told him they shouldn't call it a tavern! We had just driven 10 miles return trip on a terrible road! Grrrr. In Vesuvius on our way to the tavern I had seen a sign for Gerties Cafe .....it looked ramshackle but we decided to try it.....mediocre eggs on toast. We bought some water, (one of which turned out to be watermelon flavour) ugh! and hit the road.
Soon we were out of the Shenandoah Park and onto Blueridge Parkway. Jeff and Jon rode it on their motorcycles 7 or so years ago 45 miles per hour and no trucks allowed. He has been wanting to take me there ever since. The drive is very similar to the Shenandoah but so far without the snow. The elevation rises to above 6,000 so who knows what we would have found. We travelled about 1/2 of the route and came off to Hwy 81 and the town of Kingston Tennessee, as it was getting to be dusk.
Alas we will abandon the rest of the Blueridge Parkway, a hard choice, we will head for Lynchburg tomorrow as time is of the essence. Perhaps we will return on the motorbike in warmer weather.
Adventures on the road!!
ReplyDeleteVERY hairy! Glad all the school kids were ok! (And you guys too!)
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