Our annual leaf peeping trip

Helen and I have done this for 3 years now.

But we had to drive further this year, so decided to go on the third week rather than the second week of October, next year!

We went all the way to Grandfather Mountain.  Finally saw some color on trees there.

And Helen wanted to show me the Linn Cove Viaduct, which was the last area opened (1987) on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It's a road built around Grandfather Mountain, so that the mountain itself didn't have to be damaged.

Not my photo, but from the Blue Ridge Parkway on www.

We stopped at the visitors center at Grandfather Mountain (privately owned) and they gave us some paper maps, which showed where on the Blue Ridge Parkway the Linn Cove Viaduct was located.  We drove all the way to Blowing Rock, got off the Parkway and had lunch just a mile down a highway, then got back on the Parkway and drove south past Grandfather Mountain again.

We must have gone on the Viaduct.  Once Helen said "This looks a lot like it."

We went over it twice, and I think these photos are of it.  But we couldn't tell for sure.  No signs.  And we only got off at one of the observation areas, but there was a half mile of climbing stairs to get to the view.  I said I'd have to skip it.

We didn't find the Linn Cove Visitor Center, probably just zooming along on the Parkway.

Today's Quote:

We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that something deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit. e.e. cummings