DAY 6 -- Leaving Marion, VA

DAY 6 – HEADING HOME

As I had mentioned before, our breakfast at the Virginia Home Inn was very tasty and plentiful. We started with oatmeal, then we were served omelets with squash, onions, mushrooms, cheddar and bacon, along with fresh coffee, sour-dough bread with fresh made preserves, strawberries, orange juice, and fresh coffee.

After packing up the cars we headed on up the road to Natural Bridge, VA. Reuben and Dianne had seen it before, but the other 4 of us hadn’t so we set off for the bridge. After descending over 100 steps we saw the majestic stone bridge, once owned by Thomas Jefferson. We also walked around a Native American village that had a most interesting fence around it.

The area was very interesting but we had a mission to get to our destination in time to see the Saint’s game. So we headed towards the General Francis Marion Hotel in Marion, VA.

Once we reached the hotel, we were delighted with its quaintness and hospitable staff, who suggested the perfect bar and grill for us to watch what we thought would be a terrific game. Unfortunately, it was more nerve-racking than anything else. So we ate our way through the disastrous event and walked back to the hotel in low spirits.

DAY 7

DAY 7 – One Last Evening Away From Home

The day started off the same as all 6 before, with the exception of breakfast. Breakfast at the General Francis Marion was Continental and not hearty like all the others. Consequently, we were ready for an early lunch.

Making our way down Interstate 75 toward Birmingham, AL we all began to get hungry. So our fearless leader, Reuben found another quaint little community, Loudoun, VA. We stopped for our meal at Mark’s Downtown Diner. Cute little diner that had terrific food.

Completely satisfied, we once again took up our mission of returning home. We arrived in Birmingham around 4:00 and unpacked our gear for a hotel stay for the last time in this trip.

Miles and I headed over to visit with Christian and Kelly and the children while the others stayed at the hotel for a little revitalization.

We had reservation at Gianmarco's Restaurant at 7:00 so Miles and I didn’t get a very long visit.

Dinner that evening was another wonderful meal.

Now we were ready for an early night and hopefully a respite for a quite busy week.

DAY 5 -- A REAL SHOCKER, FIELDALE, VA

Views of the foliage from overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Granny's Corner with bins of a variety of apples.

Chateau Morrisette on our way out.

Everyone ribbed me about this being our overnight accommodations.

Reuben and Dianne were lucky, they had the honeymoon suite.

We sat watching football at the Virginia Home Inn.

Breakfast at the Virginia Home Inn.

This room was what we walked into and gasped at the Virginia Home Inn.

The Virginia Home Inn

DAY 5 – Fieldale, VA

After starting the day from a large Holiday Inn Express in Blowing Rock, NC. We started the day with a pretty good size breakfast; we packed up the cars and headed to our next destination, Fieldale, VA.

Back on the Blue Ridge Parkway, the weather was not looking very cooperative. We made our way out of town with the tops down, but it wasn’t long before we had to pull over to put our tops up.

Our first stop other than a few overlook points was an apple/fruit stand, Granny’s Corner. There were apples of all variety and it was hard to choose which we wanted to not take home with us. We also were talked into fresh baked apple pies and pumpkin pies. They were delicious.

One of our fun stops was at a log cabin, where they chided me about using this as an overnight stop.

Chateau Morrisette was a quick stop for a wine tasting, which wasn't a bad thing to do with such nasty weather outside. The wines were different but not as sweet and unusual as I was expecting.

From there our mission was to get to Francis of Assisi at Rocky Mount for 4:30 Mass. Miles and I were separated from the group when a large blue truck came between us. Not being able to follow the group we put the address in the Garmin and followed a rather precarious route that took us off the Blue Ridge Parkway onto some unusual roads. One of the most confusing roads (which only had names and no designated state or county numbers) had white lines on both sides of the road and were not wide enough for two vehicles at one time. We arrived at the church about 15 minutes before the others. The worst was that we could never communicate with each other until we all reached the Rocky Mount community.

 It wasn’t long after Mass that we found our way to The Virginia Home Inn. By all online descriptions it was an elegant well maintained bed and breakfast. When we arrived we found an 18-wheeler moving van in the driveway. That made us a little leery, but when we walked into the living room we were literally flabbergasted. Boxes filled the living room, the dining room had several large dining tables, and at least 8 cupboards and cellophane wrapped boxes. The butler’s pantry that lead into the kitchen had a raised floor that resembled pallets.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, we discovered that the two brothers that we communicated with had sold the inn to a lady from California who had just arrived 6 days prior. I was devastated. But at this time of the season it is impossible to find a last minute place to book. The house was noticeably not the quality that we were given, but suitable enough to stay. The new owner was very accommodating and it sounds as though she was duped as well as we were.

The pre-ordered dinners for that evening we had ordered with the Lewis brothers were honored but some substitutes were made. It was, however, very good and we had more than enough to eat.

Breakfast the next morning was not esthetically attractive but was tasty and plentiful. Then we were off the next day to our new destination.  

DAY 4 -- Destination Blowing Rock, NC

DAY 4 we stayed the entire time on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I think that we are all dizzy from one curve after another. So we decided to have cocktails to have a real reason for the sensation.

The foliage in this area is just beginning to show signs of color.

I was happy to be able to take pictures in Dillsboro, NC. It is a quaint little community where my great-great-grandfather’s brother settled.

This will be a short posting because I was too lazy last night to complete our blog. Hopefully I will have more time tonight.

DAY 3 - Tail of the Dragon

Reuben's always on call.

Ken treading slowly over the rocks in the stream.

Our first discovery of leaves changing.

The sunrise view from our balcony in Chattanooga.DAY 3 – Chattanooga, TN

Woke up to another beautiful day, about 60 degrees as the sun began to melt the low hanging clouds away. The view from our room’s balcony was sky brushed with a myriad of colors. We were all eager to head out towards North Carolina and to try a run of the Tail of the Dragon. This trail is a motorcyclist’s love because is contains 300 curves within an 11 miles ride. We thought it might be fun for Mustangs too.

As we made our way through Tellico Plains and the Cherokee National Forest we discovered a plethora of scenery turnouts where we could literally watch the color changes of nature as we ascended through the Cherohala Skyway.

We took a break for lunch in the quaint little village of Robbinsville. Ken had already blazed this trail and knew about a local café, Lynn’s Place. After lunch we all shared in the dessert special, fried cheesecake with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. We had enough calories in that one dessert to maintain us through winter hibernation.

After lunch we found our way to Deals Gap where we made a beeline to purchase a t-shirt for ourselves as well as for a couple of grandchildren.

Now we were ready to meet the challenge of the 300 curves. But a damper was thrown at us as we approach mile 2. A gathering of cyclists was hovering close to the road’s edge in one of the larger curves. One rider was waving us to slow down. That’s when we noticed a body on the side of the road and several men tugging desperately to lift the bike off of the person. Another person had stopped a rider approaching from the opposite direction and asked them to go down to call the EMS. I believe at that time we all said a little prayer for that person and the good Samaritans. By the time we reached the end of the Tail of the Dragon a young lady came running up to our cars. She asked us if we had seen a bike go down, one of the members of her group of ladies was missing. We told her that the young lady was being taken care of several people and that they had sent for help. At this point I believe we had all had enough of the curvaceous highway. Back tracking back to our starting point we could hear faint sounds of an approaching ambulance as we passed the young lady again. By this time she was awake and communicating with the people surrounding her. Relieve that she was responsive, we headed back down towards our evening’s destination of the Hemlock Inn in Bryson City, NC. This place is a throw back to the 1950’s. If you are looking for modern facilities with all the newest gadgets including TV, this place is not for you.

We meandered up the winding narrow road ready to end the day at a peaceful beautiful place with good food and gracious hosts. The owners were waiting for us at the front door. She led us to our over-sized round table and immediately began spoiling us with one good dish of food after another. We were served broccoli salad, homemade fried chicken and rice with white gravy, barbequed meatballs, sweet peas, apricot casserole, carrot casserole, fresh hot rolls with warm diced applesauce and pumpkin sauce. Our dessert was coconut cream pie that was very tasty, and I don’t like coconut.

After dinner our host brought us to our rooms and we unpacked our cars then met in our room to discuss our course of action for day 4 and have a nightcap. All in all it was an interesting day but we were all ready to call it an early night.

DAY 2 of Traveling to Chattanooga

Morning Breakfast

Tennessee Welcome Center

Lover's Leap

Ken & Yolanda standing under a rock with a waterfall to their left.

Photo op on the Swing-a-long Bridge with Chattanooga providing the back drop.

The Pony Club meets Dolly Parton.

Miles and Dolly conversing.

Gnome Valley on lookers.

A tight squeeze through Fat Man's Squeeze.

Dianne holding up a balanced rock in order for us to get through.

A rare white deer, called a Fallow Deer, considered an "Old World" deer.

Meeting up after breakfast in Birmingham, we loaded up our various paraphernalia and headed for Lookout Mountain and the Gnome heaven of Rock City.

Making our way past Georgia (we couldn’t find a good Georgia sign for a photo opportunity) we stopped at the Tennessee Welcome Center, where we were greeted by an enthusiastic hostess who photographed our gang for posterity. Evidently, she decided that we might be a fun group to hang around because she kept showing us different areas in the Welcome Center that she thought were great photo opportunities. That’s where we met up with Dolly Parton.

We seem to have a knack for creating a commotion wherever we stop so by the time we realized that we had changed time zones and it was 1:45 ET we decided that it was time to move on to the next location to wreak confusion and mayhem. So we headed out to Rock City.

On our quest we were came across a quaint little neighborhood café. We stopped in to have a quick bite and stayed a little longer than anticipated, due to our waitress kept getting confused about who ordered what. When our food arrived we all had exactly what we had ordered with the exception of Miles. He had no food. Poor lady, I don’t believe she will ever be the same, however she seemed to have fun waiting on us.

When we finally arrived at Rock City we were ready to see Chattanooga from cloud height, and we weren’t disappointed. Not all of us realized that it was a hike to get to the top of the mountain so that we could see all seven states, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and of course Tennessee. On our venture to the top we saw a 90-ft. waterfall, experienced sea legs on the Swing-a-long Bridge, saw a rock shaped like a face, squeezed through Fat Man’s Squeeze, visited Fairyland Caverns and felt nostalgic twinges through Mother Goose Village. By the time we were back at the ponies we were sun beat and ready for happy hour.

We checked into our rooms and immediately sought out the lively outdoors bar where there was a band playing (according to the young lady who checked us in) “hippy music”. Two cocktails later, we climbed into Tony’s cab and headed to downtown Chattanooga. Miles and I had prepared everyone for a carriage ride through the quaint downtown. All of us agreed that our meals at Hennen’s Restaurant were absolutely delicious and we were ready to venture on to the carriage ride. Unfortunately, we never could find a carriage so we called Tony. He arrived shortly after and swept us back to our hotel where a good nights sleep will be much appreciated.