I mentioned to Cheryl that I wasn’t keen on returning home until the leaves had started turning and we could drive home through some Fall scenery. Thanks to a week’s delay and some colder weather over the last few days, I was granted my wish. We are driving North on the Blue Ridge Parkway and the colors are just beautiful, particularly at the higher elevations. The Blue Ridge Parkway is truly an amazing road and I had never traveled through the mountainous stretch near Asheville. Wonderful scenery. We’re camping at the Rocky Knob NP campground tonight and plan to descend from the ridge and return home early tomorrow morning.

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I’ve always had a fascination with waterfalls. Long hikes at school camps were always that much better if lunch was taken by the side of a mountain stream or waterfall. The recent storm that passed by the East Coast plus the day of rain over the weekend have replenished water supplies to the many waterfalls in North Carolina that attract visitors. So we have included several waterfalls in our trip and of course my newly activated photography hobby demands that they be photographed.

There’s a difference of opinion in our family as to the best way to photograph moving water. Cheryl likes the ‘frozen in time’ shots that capture the drips and drops as they descend. I’m favoring the wispy smooth flow images that grace the pages of many travel and photo magazines. These require some extra equipment, a filter to reduce the light so a long time exposure can be taken and a cable release and tripod so the camera is still during the long exposure. At the moment I’m doing both types of shots so we can discuss and enlist other opinions. What do you think?

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Rafting on the Nantahala River

Cheryl has many times described the fun she had in Arizona on a 4 day rafting trip down the Colorado River when she was in her twenties. So when we drove along the side of the Ocoee River last Sunday, she wasn’t any longer going to be put off repeating the experience. The Ocoee River is the site of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics canoe slalom and water is released on weekends by the TVA to provide fun for the many rafters and boaters who use this area. Waiting for the next weekend water release wasn’t an option for us so with some local advice, we booked a trip on the Nantahala River, site of the 2013 World Kayaking Championships. We had a great ride down the river gorge under the capable helmsmanship of Mark from Wildwater, with the final rapid descent captured by their on-staff photographer.

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Zip-lining over the Nantahala Gorge

Ready to Go?

Zip-lining was another matter. Don’t let the brochures about being one with Nature, peacefully soaring above the canopy fool you. It is a Theme Park ride in a forest! Cheryl was pretty hesitant about this activity after a morning of rafting. However, after some peer pressure from two lady Australians we had met, she finally agreed to take to the treetops with us. There was a practice session organize by our two guides to build up confidences and go over the equipment. I’m quite familiar with the safety harness system having taught for a short time with the Outward Bound corporate training programs. Because of this, I was able to be pretty calm about taking off 100′ over the ground (even though I don’t look it).

Cheryl did a fantastic job of overcoming her fears and completing 10 zip-line rides with only a couple of bruised ankles caused by a ‘late braking’ incident. Her final ride was perfect, ending up arriving at the end platform at the desired speed of zero mph – a perfect landing.

I found the hardest part (other than worrying about hitting trees on the way) was to judge my approach speed at the end, and not to engage the ‘panic brake’ when it looked like I was approaching too fast. I had a great time, but I don’t think Cheryl will repeat the experience – but she deserves a medal for achieving this!

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Photographs of the amazing Smoky Mountains.

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The Smoky Mountains were aptly named. We’ve seen some wonderful views, showing the layers of blue mountains. Here are some of our favorites.

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Colin, On Stage in Nashville

Cheryl & Colin On Stage, in Nashville!

Serendipity. Couldn’t have planned this in a million years. Looking for Bluegrass venues and we found one in the outskirts of Nashville. It calls itself ‘Larry’s Grand Ole Garage’ and was started in 2000 as an ‘Acoustic Only’ Bluegrass location running weekly concerts with a wide international following (we are told) via their live online streaming website. The owner found out Colin was a musician, and invited him to play in the first half of the program. With a little practice in a back room, a guitar and bass accompanied Colin. Then onstage. Great! During the half time intermission, Cheryl said to the owner, “I play flute and Colin and I play duets.” So during the last bit of the program, we both went on stage. “Live, on stage, in Nashville.” OK, it wasn’t the Grand Ole Opry, but it sure was fun.

Movies coming soon as we access a high speed Internet connection!

Below, Colin playing with a 3 piece back up band at Larry’s Grand Ole Garage!

2 Mandolins playing at Larry’s Grand Ole Garage

Blue Ridge Mountain Song

What an amazing evening we had. The party for the Grand Ole Opry’s 90th Birthday was fantastic. Our top picks of the evening: The yodeling of Riders in the Sky; the humor and singing of Bobby Osbourne & The Rocky Top X-Press; the Old Crow Medicine Show band who played our favorite, “Wagon Wheels”; Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush”; and a surprise appearance of the Allman Brothers! Below are Colin’s pictures of the evening.

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Below are movies of the Fiddlin’ Carson Peters Band who entertained the crowd outside on the Plaza of the Opry.

We are really enjoying the Nashville scene.The most amazing and different thing we saw was a tavern running on bicycle power! The picture on the right has a driver and a barkeep, otherwise, the 8 guys are peddling to make the car go. We saw them turn a corner, and they all had to stand up and peddle like mad. They were hooping and hollering and burning calories while they were drinking!  Some of the pictures below are from !the Hall of Fame museum and it was a wonderful experience. It’s amazing to hear and see some of the oldies from the 30s and 40s. We also went to Nashville’s Honkey Tonk section – bar hopped all night, listening to all the bands. We must have been in 16 different places. We were thrilled with the quality of the musicians and the breath of their repertoires. There was one band in particular that would only take requests for $20 bills! Requests kept coming in for the Devil Went Down to Georgia, which the band said was their most requested song, and they were tired of playing it because it was so intense. They’d only play it for $100. So the crowd acquiesced and put in the cash. We thought, “Wow, ‘Will sing for cash,'” is a hard way to make a living. We loved the fact that there were no cover charges at any of these bars. But of course we did drink a bit! (OK, more than a bit.) We had taken a shuttle from our RV site to downtown, so I didn’t have to be designated driver! (Cheryl)

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We didn’t know it but Maggie, my sister-in-law, has her own valley in Tennessee. There’s Maggie’s Gifts, Maggie’s Garage, Maggie’s Restaurants, well, you get the picture.

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The start of BIA407 – unsuitable for RVs!

You’ve got to love this little vehicle we are traveling in! We climbed out of Maggie Valley on Hwy19 headed for a little campground claiming some of the best views in the area. After a short stretch on the BRP (Blue Ridge Parkway) we exited as directed and stopped a few minutes looking up the steep narrow path which advertised itself on our van’s and our iPhone’s GPS as BIA rte 407, the last leg of our journey (BIA = Bureau of Indian Affairs). We took the plunge and started climbing up this graveled, muddy switchback. I was worried we would bottom out on some of the tanks under our long wheelbase van on some of the ‘moguls’ or slide on some of the muddy patches rounding some of the hairpins. Luckily we didn’t hear any scrapes (drowned out by the noise coming from the passenger seat?) and none of the minor items flying around the inside of the van and in the cupboards suffered any damage. As we pulled up the final grade, happy to see the campground sign, we were cheered on by a group of local bikers who said: “Never seen a vehicle like that come up the back road, why didn’t you take the paved road?”

Up in the clouds

The campsite is beautiful, the view is pure white as we are in the clouds with a storm approaching, our campfire was put out by the rain drifting in but our spirits are dry. I told the campsite host, “We’re staying ’til we see the view”. “Don’t worry,” he said, “your site is free for the next week or two.”

We’ve a working internet thanks to our antenna booster and a few flaky TV channels so we might just stay and wait for the view . . . . . . which came very early the next morning.

Taken at 2am by moonlight

Next Morning when the sun came up