On our 2004 vacation to northwestern North Carolina we made a day trip north into southwestern Virgina. We drove part of the time on the Blue Ridge Parkway and part of the time on the two lane country roads of the area. We only made it as far north as Mabry Mill that year and the day was overcast and rainy. I managed to grab this shot at the time…
Over the next few years I discovered the online presence of a few bloggers from Floyd County Virginia. Fred First, Colleen Redman, Doug Thompson, David St. Lawrence…All became “imaginary” friends who I visited daily. I had also begun to notice that home and land prices on this side of the Virginia/North Carolina state line were a bit more reasonable. As we began to plan our vacation for 2007 I began to make plans to swing into Floyd and meet a few of the folks I had gotten to know…Then fate stepped in and I was diagnosed with a cancer on my vocal chord. Treatment to start three weeks before our scheduled vacation and to run for another four weeks…Trip delayed. We ended up making it an Anniversary trip instead of a family vacation.
Further Exploration
It was November of 2007 when my wife and I made that excursion into Virginia. This trip we drove from Asheville to Charlottesville where we spent a few days. We visited Monticello and enjoyed the history and the sights. We made a day run up the Shenandoah Valley after driving up to Skyline Drive and finding the weather closing in on the mountain tops. The next day we started our drive south on the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 1.We were headed to a room at the Floyd Hotel and a meetup with Fred and Ann First.
The weather was cold and almost immidiatly we bagan to see snow. The drive south was beautiful with fall color on the trees and snow on the ground. We meandered most of the way south on the Parkway, but with it being so late in the year, all facilities were closed for the season. So when nature called we had to leave the Parkway behind and spend some time in the valleys.
And so begins the Virginia portion of our Mountain Dreams….
November 2020 – Reposted from The Internet Archive – Wayback Machine