I am back on the road again making the first of two trips to complete the US perimeter. This trip I am calling Perimeter East and I will make my way to the Gulf coast and then follow the coast eastwards along the Gulf of Mexico, south to the Everglades along the west side of Florida and then north along the east coasts of Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland until I get to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge which was the starting point for the original trip. This trip officially started yesterday (Wednesday) at the north end of the Blue Ridge Parkway, where the original trip ended, although I actually left home on Tuesday and drove the lower portion of Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park to get there.

I was unable to post last night because, just after I arrived at my hotel in Hillsville Virginia, a strong thunderstorm interrupted the power for a while and the hotel’s Internet connection never recovered. Apart from that glitch, it has been an easy start since I have simply driven about 200 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway each day and I am now in Asheville, North Carolina.

The pleasure of driving the parkway is the calm of no trucks, little traffic, no traffic lights or stop signs and the constantly changing but ever attractive roadside views. The parkway connects Shenadoah National Park to Great Smoky Mountains National Park and, after two delightful days on the road, I wish they could build parkways to connect all major National Parks. There are no spectacular highlights in any of the following videos or photos but I hope they give you a feel for the tranquility and calm pervading the journey.

There are three map/video pages:
April 26, the southern portion of Skyline Drive, is here,
April 27, the Virginia portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway, is here,
April 28, most of the North Carolina portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway is here.

This is the Roanoke River as seen from the Parkway
This bucolic scene is of Mabry Mill which is still functioning – but only for the tourists.The duck that can be seen in the above photo (right below the mill-wheel) hopped out of the pond and joined me for about 30 yards on the trail.
Another soul calming experience was at Otter Lake.
And a view of Linville Falls, NC as seen from Chimney Overlook.