Blue Ridge Parkway Trip - Day 7

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Traveled from milepost 292.7 to 376.7

Finally a day when it didn't rain. Today will be a very long one for the cyclists. They end up doing 94 miles (151km) and climbing over 10,000 ft (over 3km). They also climbed Mount Mitchell, which is the highest point east of Mississippi.

In the meantime Karen and I went to the  Moses H. Cone Memorial Park and Craft Center. Since we dropped the guys off early we had over an hour wait for the Craft Center to open. The day was not rainy, but it was cold and very windy. I ended up wearing couple of sweaters under my jacket. We decided to go and walk the Figure Eight Trail just to kill time. The Craft center had a lot of really beautiful arts and crafts and it was all very expensive too.

Off they go again, looks like thumbs up from everybody

Moses H. Cone Manor House

 

View from the Manor

Moses H. Cone Manor, from the side

Figure Eight Trail

Story of the Figure Eight Trail

Work being done at Moses H. Cone Manor fence

Some neat looking bottle cap and pull crafts @ Moses H. Cone

Julian Price Park Overlook

 
From there we headed south and stopped at the Linn Cove Viaduct and Visitor's Center. There was a trail to go under the viaduct to get a little bit different view of it.

Linn Cove Viaduct, milepost 304.4

Linn Cove Viaduct,

Linn Cove Viaduct, from underneath

Karen under the Linn Cove Viaduct

Linn Cove Viaduct, from underneath

Model of the building of the Linn Cove Viaduct

Karen under the Linn Cove Viaduct

About a mile or so before Crabtree Meadows we came across Mark who was just pulling over and it looked like he was having problems with his back wheel. Karen drove ahead to catch up with Joe and Jeff and let them know that we will be stopping at the next overlook and needing help fixing Mark's wheel. We loaded up Mark's bike and he got a lift to the Crabtree Meadows where Jeff changed his back wheel because his old one broke. It was a good thing that Jeff took the wheels off his old bike and brought them with us.

Changing Mark's back wheel

Karen and I at the Black Mountains Overlook

Black Mountains Overlook, milepost 342.3, elev. 3373' (1028m)

After that we caught them again at the Black Mountain Gap from where they took the road to the top of Mount Mitchell. Karen and I didn't bother driving up, instead we went to the Craggy Gardens Visitor Center. Contrary to it's name there are no gardens there. There was a fashion photo shoot though and we watched this poor girl freeze in skimpy dresses and sandals.

Jeff doing a no no, riding without holding the handlebars

Ready to tackle Mount Mitchell

Craggy Pinacle Tunnel, one of many

A photo shoot at Craggy Gardens Overlook

Photo Shoot at Craggy Gardens Overlook

We met the guys after their grueling ride at the Tanbark Overlook and from there took this really narrow and winding dirt road to north Asheville to our hotel. We stayed at Days Inn, which turned out to be quite nice for Day's Inn. Had dinner at the  Bellagio Bistro. They had a good selection of Italian and Greek food.

End of today's ride at Tanbark Overlook, no worse for wear. . .