{"id":4289,"date":"2023-04-07T21:58:40","date_gmt":"2023-04-08T01:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/?p=4289"},"modified":"2023-04-07T21:58:40","modified_gmt":"2023-04-08T01:58:40","slug":"when-not-to-drive-the-parkway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/?p=4289","title":{"rendered":"When not to drive the Parkway"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3>Friday April 7, 2023<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"\/Tripmapper\/Mapview2.aspx?DataFile=Atlanta\/04_07_DC&amp;Video=5y3rStKXa0E\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"\/Tripmapper\/Mapview2.aspx?DataFile=Atlanta\/04_07_DC&amp;Video=5y3rStKXa0E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Road video and map<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today I left Roanoke with the plan being to drive the rest of the Blue Ridge Parkway, enjoy a couple of trails at the James River and visit Natural Bridge State Park a few miles west. Then, tomorrow, to drive Skyline Drive in Shenandoah NP to get home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As I drove north along the parkway towards the James River it was raining but reasonably clear and this was the view from the first overlook I stopped at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"760\" height=\"291\" src=\"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Wet-Panorama.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4291\" srcset=\"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Wet-Panorama.jpg 760w, http:\/\/relativerest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Wet-Panorama-300x115.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Much as I love driving the Blue Ridge Parkway there are times when it&#8217;s better avoided. There are signs at every entry point telling drivers to avoid the parkway in snow, ice and fog and further north this was what it looked like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"760\" height=\"428\" src=\"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Dash-Cam-Screenshot.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4295\" srcset=\"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Dash-Cam-Screenshot.jpg 760w, http:\/\/relativerest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Dash-Cam-Screenshot-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p> I encountered fog several times as the road went into the clouds but I knew the James River is the low point of the parkway so I pressed on slowly. When I arrived it was raining gently, windy, and only 40\u00b0 F (4\u00b0 C) according to the car. No sooner had I put on my warm jacket and set off on my walk than it started to pour. At that point I felt that the joy of parkway driving had diminished to the point that I no longer needed it and decided to end the trip a day early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks to all that followed along and\/or commented. As always, I learned a lot along the way, enjoyed most of the places I visited, writing my daily posts, reading your thoughts and the driving, and had some fun &#8211; particularly the five days in Atlanta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday April 7, 2023 Road video and map Today I left Roanoke with the plan being to drive the rest of the Blue Ridge Parkway, enjoy a couple of trails at the James River and visit Natural Bridge State Park a few miles west. Then, tomorrow, to drive Skyline Drive in Shenandoah NP to get &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/?p=4289\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">When not to drive the Parkway<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[96,3],"tags":[54],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4289"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4299,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289\/revisions\/4299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}