Asheville. Bue Ridge and our last night.

Tennessee

I'm writing this from our last stop before home, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia, about 300 miles from home. We have been driving 8 to 10 hours since we left Grand Canyon, in order to be home by this coming weekend for the ParkQuest Rendezvous. It's been tedious and mostly boring.

We spent a day in Asheville yesterday. Our original plan was to spent two night there, then hightail it home, but after spending the afternoon in the downtown area, we were pretty well finished. We decided against spending $200+ to tour the Biltmore, and while the downtown was nice enough, with cute artsy shops, we saw it all in a few hours and were ready to move on.

Memphis. Why does it have a pyramid?

Mast General store in Asheville. 

So much candy. So little time.

The Coffee Double Decker Bus!

First the taco bus, not the coffee bus!

It was so cute on the inside too. This was the
upstairs. 

Waiting for our drinks.

Cute tables.

So we headed up the Blue Ridge Parkway this morning. Our plan had been to stop at several of the visitors centers, do the Junior Ranger program and enjoy the drive, but we ran into some issues and didn't get a lot of that done. 

A new tire later, and we ran out of time for the visitors centers and only made it just across the Virginia line for the night. But, it was some lovely scenery. We've seen a lot of mountains on this trip, but funnily enough, my favorite is still the Blue Ridge. Familiarity? Maybe. But they are just so majestic and all those shades of blue as the peaks fade into the distance. I still love them. 

Our last national park, The Blue
Ridge Parkway

Fall is starting to show its colors.

So pretty

The blue goes on forever.

Almost home.

 

Good shot of trailer and truck.

So tomorrow we should be home. While I'll be glad to see my family and friends again (and the dogs, cats, bunnies and bird), I'm sad to see this round of travel come to an end. Yes, there have been arguments and kids fighting. I'm a little tired of the same 5 or 6 sets of clothes. I miss Wednesday night trivia. But it's been such a great adventure for all of us. And maybe even more than the fun and adventure, it's been such a bonding experience for all of us. I think we've all grown closer, gotten to know each other a little better, learned to tolerate, and maybe even appreciate, each other a little more.

So here's our secret. We're hoping this is the beginning, not the end. I hope to continue this blog with more tales of travel and adventure. We don't want this to end for good. So I'm trying to look at this as a break, to be continued soon hopefully. I'm not sure what that will look like or when or where it will happen, but we've enjoyed this so much. The good has outweighed the bad by such a huge amount. I've grown to feel like this is home. It will be weird not to sleep in this bed tomorrow night. Of course, it will be right outside in the driveway.

Stay tuned...