Day 30

After a rainy night we woke up to dry Sunday morning with sunny skies.  

As these mileage signs indicate, Pine Grove Furnace State Park is the mid-point of the Appalachian Trail.

Campsite #31

Appalachian Trail Museum.  It's always closed when we're there, but one year we will visit it.

Our first stop was back in Gettysburg, at the Gettysburg Baking Company where we picked up coffee, pastries, and sandwiches for lunch.

This ended up being our last day on the road.  Our original plan was to spend the night in Glastonbury so that we could visit Nick, Chetty, Jack, & Billy,  but everyone was sick to some degree, so after stopping for a very quick 90 minute visit we continued on to East Sandwich.

Jack working the pump on our sink.

Our final meal of this trip, scallop rolls and fries at Seafood Sam's in Sandwich.

So this is my final blog update.  We arrived at home at 8:45 PM.   Today we drove 570 miles, the most miles we covered on any single day, and over the past 30 days have driven 5,549 miles!  

What a wonderful trip it was...but, it's great to be home too.

Spring was just starting to arrive in Sandwich when we departed.  The grass was green, the daffodils had bloomed, but there were no leaves on the trees. Today it looks like summer, but it's still spring and we'll get to enjoy all the flowering joys for a second time.

Our route for Day 30

Day 29

We woke up to another wet, foggy morning at Fairystone State Park,  home to the mysterious "fairy stones", or staurolite. The stone, prevalent in the region, contains the St. Andrew's or Roman cross.

Continuing our journey north, we returned to the Blue Ridge Parkway, enjoying incredible vistas at every turn.  Since it was Saturday I thought we'd encounter a lot more traffic, but the only obvious change was more cyclists.

The Parkway is lined with mountain laurel trees which are very similar to rhododendrons.  Unfortunately they had not flowered yet, due to the elevation of the road which rarely dips below 3,000 feet.  The most common flowering trees that we encountered were these purple jacaaranda and the orange azalea.

We got off the Parkway in order to have lunch at a Greek restaurant in Lexington, VA, home to Virginia Military Academy and Washington & Lee University. We both had gyros, very tasty, but not particularly photo worthy.  However these roses were.  

Leaving Lexington, we skipped the last 30 miles of the Parkway and took I-81 to Staunton, VA, a charming town that we had visited in the 1970's.  

Gardening is big in Staunton.

Our destination for the the day was Gettysburg, where we had a reservation at  Pine Grove Furnace State Park.  We approached Gettysburg by a different route which took us through this single lane covered bridge.  

We returned to "Food 101" for dinner.  We were worried that the restaurant would be crowded since Gettysburg College's graduation was also that day, but we lucked out, and got a table without having to wait.  Our meal was delicious.  Joni ordered a club sandwich that included: 

turkey, applewood smoked bacon, avocado, chipotle mayo, lettuce and tomato on a wheat berry 

bread. I chose the same dish that I had a month ago, baked shrimp pappardelle with a cream sauce that included: artichokes, spring onion, lemon, capers, edamame, cilantro, and fontina cream.  Clearly the 

chef likes to cook!

We arrived at our campsite at 7:55 pm, just as it was getting really. When we were last 

here on Monday, April 18, there were only a handful of campsites occupied, whereas tonight, 

a month later and a Saturday night, the campground was full. What a difference a month 

makes!

Day 28

We woke up to a rainy Friday morning, so for the first time on this trip we made coffee inside the van...not a problem.  Since it was raining we modified our intended itinerary and decided to do our laundry, so our first stop after leaving the campground was in Blacksburg, VA, the home of Virginia Tech.  It happened to be graduation weekend at VT, so we thought we'd have trouble finding a place for lunch but we lucked out and had delicious margaritas and tacos at "Cabo Fish Taco".  Our tacos were a cut above!

One of those margs is Joni's.

Leaving Blacksburg we headed for Floyd, VA, which is always a highlight of our trips to the South.  Floyd is one of the capitols of country music and the weekly Friday Night Jamboree is something we schedule our entire trip around

Floyd is a very small, population=433, artsy town, and their shops and signage clearly reinforce that theme.

The Floyd General Store is a true general store; they sell everything including mandolins.

This poster was displayed in the Blue Ridge Music Center in Galax, but the portable individual dance  platform shown above is clearly still in practice in Floyd.

I published this photo last year, when the Jamboree was held outside due to COVID.  This guy, whose using a platform,  won the best dancer award.  I think this style of dancing is called "flat footing."  Speaking of COVID, of the approximately 200 people watching the Jamboree inside the country store, only three people were wearing masks.  Joni and I were among the three.  Speaking to one of the ushers at the Jamboree, in response to my comment that over a million people have now died due to COVID, the usher replied, "...if you can believe those numbers."

As you walk down the street in Floyd, you'll come across live music anywhere there's enough space for one or more musicians to gather.  These groups were playing while the Jamboree was going on.

Country music isn't the only genre being celebrated in Floyd, jazz is alive too.

The first hour of the Jamboree is Gospel Hour.  These guys were very good and almost converted a heathen like me!

Check out the bald spots!

Dancing is not allowed during the gospel hour, but all hell broke loose with this act!

I don't know when the Jamboree actually ends, we wish we could have stayed longer, but 30 mile drive back to campground was over some very treacherous roads, so we left early enough to complete the drive in the daylight.

 

Day 27

Continuing north on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Our first activity after breakfast at our campsite was a short walk to see the top of Linville Falls which is the deepest gorge in America.

Leaving Linville Falls we continued north along the Parkway.

Typical view of the roadway on the Parkway, no shoulders, just grass, trees, and...

...lots and lots of incredible views of the Blue Ridge Mountains!

The summer home of Moses Cone just outside Blowing Rock, NC.  Mr. Cone made his fortune in textiles and at one point was the single largest producer of denim fabric in the world.

The Blue Ridge Music Center celebrates the roots of American music and the contribution to music made by the people of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The museum was presented many of the stories on which Ken Burns focused in his PBS series on country music.

The Blue Ridge Music Center, outside Galax, VA, and right on the Parkway, celebrates the contribution to music made by the people of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The museum was presented many of the stories on which Ken Burns focused 

Half staff in memory of the 1,000,000 who have died of COVID.

Live music presented every day when the museum is open.

This man is displaying a mountain dulcimer which he made using exclusively repurposed woods from the immediate area.

A guitar made by a local luthier

Campsite #34 at Fairystone State Park

Using the awning for the first time on this trip in order to stay dry as we sip a wee dram of whisky and enjoy our campfire.

Our route on Day 27 from Linville Falls, NC to Fairystone State Park, VA