The old lodge window

Joyce..njoyce06..woman walking..drove up to SC to meet up with me for a trip to the North Carolina mountains.   Today we drove to Asheville where we visited the NC Arboretum which has a fantastic bonsai collection on display.    

When we left the gardens, we drove onto the Blue Ridge Parkway which is a mountain road that has no stop signs and a 45mph speed limit.   Winding up and down hills with dramatic overlooks (way down drop offs!) where on a clear day you can see very far in the distance.   However, we did not have a clear day even though we never got rained on, the clouds were low and moving swiftly through the valleys below us.  But it was still pretty as I love mountains.  

This window was on the old lodge at Mount Mitchell which is the highest mountain in North Carolina and the highest mountain east of the Mississippi River in the US.   The rhododendrens were blooming all over the mountains and when I walked by this window, there they were.  Not a regular flower photo.  

We also walked up to the top of Craggy Gardens trail..about a mile of rocky trail.  We were lucky to get to this location after there had been a rain shower which made for very careful walking.  

A 2 hour ride from Asheville to our destination at Boone for the night took us 5 hours..we stopped at most of the overlooks, did 2 small hikes and we could only go so fast on the curves.    Joyce was very nervous of my driving as she is a flatlander from Florida and has not had mountain driving experience..but we made it safe and sound!  

The last extra I have is the last photo I took today on the parkway.  The sun came out to shine on the valley below.  Always grateful to see this happen!    Maybe it is a sign that our trip is going to be bright and sunny.

And it is so much cooler up in the mountains than it is where we live!