I couldn't help myself... I deviated from the plan. I left Wytheville early,
and headed up 81 so that I'd have time to cut over to the Blue Ridge Parkway,
and Shenandoah National Park (Skyline Drive) for a while.
http://tinyurl.com/knr8y3 <--- google map of deviation
I can recommend the route... The roads leading to the BRP (and the towns they went through,
particularly Vesuvius, Va) were great... There's a place to get gas near where the
BRP access is...
I snacked and laid back for a while under this crab apple tree... I turned on the
camera in video mode to capture the sounds of the birds, but that's not downloaded yet...
I listened to it, it sounds great...
The Laurel is gone in South Carolina, but it was still all over in Virginia. I passed someplace today
where there was yucca blooming all over the place, never seen so much of the stuff...
Stopped at some overlooks. Saw some bears and some deer. Lots of bird calls, and no other
noises (cars, leaf blowers, etc...)
Even though Detn8er isn't here, there was some massive rain again today... I hit it on 33
headed back to 81, and it was coming down in buckets for a while after I hit 81... I reached
down and turned on the camera during the most heavy rain, hope it took... I'll post it later if it
comes out cool...
I started seeing other Valkyries after the rain quit, and caught up to the whole gang at the
last gas stop:
After leaving the last gas stop we had an awesome (that is, too fast, threading through
way too many transfer trucks going 75) run to the Pennsylvania welcome center, where
we gathered up for the last leg to ground Zero. I took video during this run once all
the Valkyries were grouped together, and kept the camera running all the way into
the Welcome center, hope that one comes out...
There's a whole bunch of people here at Ground Zero, even Willow and Motomama are here...
A good day! I'm tired...
-Mike
