Thursday 2 August 4058 steps
Songs: Country roads by John Denver and Pocohontas by Neil Young
Even though it was raining, David started his day with his usual cycle, but returned after 20 minutes. He had ridden over a small metal rod that went through his back tyre and destroyed it.
The upshot of this was that we managed to leave early, which was a good thing as we had a long drive ahead of us. As we left the park , we drove to the view point where you can look down over Virginia and Kentucky.
Then we drove along towards the highway. It is beautiful countryside. Again, you come across towns that are about a mile wide by 20 miles long. They even have superstores in the valley. We went to the highway to cut down some of our travel time by going through tunnels, but the traffic was so backed up because of accidents on both sides of the roads. We saw at least 3 accidents with trucks and another that had come off the road. Traffic going in the opposite direction was at a standstill for at least 10 miles in the first incident. Not surprising though, these huge trucks come racing downhill, around bends in the pouring rain. It was scary, so we got the freeway as soon as we could. We had planned to drive along the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway in any case. Whatever road you are on, you are surrounded by beautiful trees, most of which are deciduous and I can only imagine how spectacular this must be in Autumn.
I was also amused by the creeper that covers everything. I assume it is the same as what we call “Virginia creeper”at home. Wherever you look, you see these jellymould shapes of green. I guess you have to keep moving or it will engulf you, like some cheap sci-fi horror movie.
On our way, we saw a sign for Pocahontas, so I did a quick Trip Advisor search and found out that coal mine tours were offered there. Google said they were open. We immediately decided to make the detour. On the way, you cross state lines several times. Sadly, when we got there, it was little more than a ghost town and the mine was well and truly closed. We followed google back to the main road, but it has having problems and took us via the narrowest windy roads. Poor David had to do some hectic maneuvering, especially when a car came from the other direction.
Luckily we soon got onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. It literally runs along the crest of the mountains with valleys on either side. The scenery was awesome, in spite of the mist. We had had a long day and at about 6pm we found a campsite just off the parkway which was one of the best we have stayed at.
Observation of the day: This sticker on a shut down mine in an almost ghost town, his supporters are definitely out there. Maybe they believe he can make it great again.
What I learnt: Although I only know a little and there are few facts about Pocahontas’ life, there is a romanticism about her that attracts me. I learnt that David feels the same. Both of us immediately said “should we go there?” when we saw the road sign. We haven’t done that for any other of the names, however peculiar, we have seen along the way. Also, John Denver was not wrong when he said described this area as “almost heaven.”
Kim's journey 