4/26/15 Another day of semi-planned wandering. We departed the Invader and initially drove into Lenoir, which the folks in NC pronounce “Lenore,” probably because they have no idea that almost the entire remainder of the world pronounce it “Len-whar.” There seems to be many funny pronunciations in the Carolinas. In SC, they pronounce Beaufort as “Bufort.” I have no idea how they pronounce the name Beauregard.
Anyway, we drove into Lenoir and took Hwy 64 west to Morganton, NC, birthplace and former residence of Sam Ervin, who was the special prosecutor during the Watergate fluff-up during Ex-President and slimeball Richard Nixon’s administration. We turned north from there up Hwy 181 to another section of the Blue Ridge Parkway. On the way up 181, Peg spotted what was either the biggest pheasant in North America or a large female wild turkey. She was a cutie. We also encountered serious fog with very low visibility at about 2500 feet elevation which continued up to about 3100′. We turned east on the Parkway and, again, were not disappointed. There are neat little waterfalls right next to the road, beautiful picnic areas, plenty of pull-outs and the engineering of the road itself is extraordinary. There are numerous bridges spanning multiple creeks that pass under the road and there are also some causeway sections where the entire roadway is installed on top such that you drive on a ribbon suspended above the landscape.
We continued on the Parkway until we came to a town called Blowing Rock. This town is another tourist trap-type unit, probably because there is an amusement park here called the Tweetsie Railroad which we carefully avoided by refusing to find it. We turned down Hwy 321 to get back to “Lenore” again and the top section of 321 was heavily shrouded with fog such that visibility was about 50 feet at the bad spots. There was also a bunch of road construction fun which was cleverly concealed by the fog but the Dept. of Transportation must have gotten bored because the construction stopped right about time the visibility improved.
The Blue Ridge Parkway is a truly magnificent route through this part of the world and if I get another chance to drive this road, I will. The maximum speed limit on the Parkway is 45 mph which, considering the scenery, is too high. I am sure I pissed off those that happened to come up behind Charlotte because we rarely broke 25 mph through this section of the road.