A Long Post, At Least a Lot of Pictures

Creekwood Farm where I left you turned out to be okay, certainly tight, but a friendly place and right on a beautiful stream, in fact we made a reservation for next year in one of the on stream sites.

Back out to Publix for a real visit, then to lunch at a nice place, Maggie's Galley Seafood in a Waynesville.  We poked around there for awhile and found the town was much bigger and had a lot more stuff than we thought. Then headed back which gave Jan enough time to wash the truck.

The next day I worked on the brake light issue some more, ran new wire at the light in the coach at the driver's seat, and I can report it didn't work either, got a half day with a light then pop went the fuse.  I am truly flummoxed on this issue, does not make sense!  While I did that Jan got her hair cut.  

The next day we drove to Sylva and found a very cute small town, lots of walking, shops, etc.  And we found a great restaurant there called Creekside Oyster House.  And it was really good, nice to get some seafood oddly enough in the mountains and we were craving it.

Started off with some great calamari

Jan had peel and eat shrimp

I had a seafood combo, oysters, gulf shrimp, and catfish, with awesome fried okra!

After lunch we headed up to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The parkway is America's longest linear park at 469 miles.  The northern boundary was in Waynesboro, VA, where we took the Skyline Drive north and its southern point is US Rte 441 at the border of The Great Smoky Mountain National Park and the Qualla boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.  It mostly follows the ridge line and offers exceptional views with good weather.  We started at the southern terminus and drove it back up to Waynesville.  The weather cooperated and we could see hints of the color that was coming.

We stopped at a great overlook for coffee.

Then we worked our way back to the campground.  As I said it was a little tight, but we had a decent view, a nice fire, and a pretty sky.

The next day we packed a lunch and since the weather looked good we started up near Asheville and brought the BRP back south across its highest point, 6,053'.  Each day we saw a bit more color peaking out.

Not a shabby picnic spot:-)

Clouds coming in

Then the weather really came in as we climbed towards the highest point on the parkway.  Almost zero visibility for miles!

We were pretty sure we passed the sign for the highest point and then as we made our way down again, we picked up a little sunlight and clearing.

The next day we wanted to go into Waynesville, walk around some to get a feel for the town and have lunch at Sweet Onion.  We planned to get to the restaurant right when they opened at 1130am.  And we did, and were promptly told it would be a 20-30 minute wait!!  If you know me that really puts me off, but it turns out they are so popular and busy they take mostly reservations even at lunch, so I bit my lip and sure enough in 15 minutes we were seated.  It is a very nice place, a step up from the ordinary.  We both had a delicious and very pleasant lunch.

Jan's awesome open face pot roast sandwich

My delicious Asian inspired salad

And I forgot to take a picture of their famous onion soup, but it was great, picture creamy flavorful onion soup with the cheese and crouton:-)  After lunch we walked around downtown for awhile.  We had heard of Lake Junaluska but didn't know anything about it, so we took a drive around the lake.  It is a fairly small lake with walking paths, and it had belonged to the Methodist church for many years, but was sold to the community as we understand.  It still hosts many church related events.  We stumbled upon the Memorial Chapel is stunningly beautiful.

Near the church was a labyrinth, something we had never seen before.

Our time in Waynesville came to a close and we moved east to Marion, NC.  When we made our changed reservations for the fall, we didn't realize at the time that this is peak season here with the leaf peepers, so we took what we could get so we are kind of ricocheting across the area:-)  Also it would give us yet another part of the BRP to explore.  Once we arrived after a short drive, we went right on up to the BRP as it was a nice day.

The color up here was stunning!

Back to the campground at Tom Johnson RV.  The pictures don't do it justice, but it a nice place all back in's, all paved roads and concrete sites with decent space.

Remember I mentioned I had planned to fix our tire situation so I had made an appointment south of Asheville to get new ones, so we made it a day.  Got the tires installed in record time, and wow o wow it is now quiet in the truck again!  Then Jan got her shot, then off to lunch, we were both hankering for Vietnamese and we did very well at Wild Ginger, Jan got a delicious Banh Minh, and I got one of the best pho's I've ever had in a really friendly nice place!

We poked around, ran a few errands and headed back to a pretty sky.

The next day we planned to go north to Blowing Rock and Boone.  It was a pretty drive almost all the way to Blowing Rock, but as we climbed up to the town in came the drizzle, wind, and the temp dropped to 50!  We planned on a restaurant there with good reviews, Foggy Rock.  We got there right at opening time and there was already a line, a good sign, and oddly compared to everywhere else we've been in this general area, there was a sign that said they had a town mask mandate, but they didn't say anything when we walked in maskless, as did quite a few others.  Regardless how you feel about mask mandates and I am not starting a big discussion here, but in a restaurant where they want to walk to your table with a mask on then take it off for the rest of your time there and then put it back on to walk out is, in my opinion one of the absolutely stupidest things I can think of.  Rant over.  Lunch was awesome, my steak sandwich was perfect, and Jan's unusual salad was, as she said, a taste sensation.

Blowing Rock and Boone seem to be very nice towns and the views, wow.  Back to the campground.

Our last day dawned bright, clear, and cold, 33 degrees.  We planned this time to pack a lunch and go to the Linville Viaduct, an engineering marvel and the last part of the parkway to be constructed around Grandfather Mountain.  We got an absolute gift this day, it warmed up to be really nice and it was so clear it was amazing, one of those infrequent days in the east!

The viaduct

On the viaduct

Where we had our picnic

 And back, what a day, and what a gift!

Then this morning we had this awesome sky to wish us goodbye for our trip over to Sevierville, TN.

As we made our way to our new campground in Sevierville, Two Rivers, we caught a glimpse of the Smokies in the clouds that was amazing.

Now we are parked right on the French Broad River for a few days.