We were quickly back on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the morning heading for Fries, VA. The Blue Ridge is a National Parkway maintained by the Park Service but clearly with a different approach than the Skyline Drive. The scenery is gorgeous as you’ll see below but the outlooks are frequently so overgrown that the view is blocked and many of the best views are not accessible via outlook. God bless the internet once again; some kind soul rated all 263 outlooks and that was a great help picking the ones to stop at.
At one outlook we saw a small black bear crossing the road. The other side of the road was all a solid rock face but that bear took a look at us and must have scrambled straight up very fast as they were long gone before we could even grab a camera.
At the next outlook we saw a couple of pickup trucks with dogs and managed a chat, and permission to photograph the dogs, with one of the hunters. His accent/dialect made the chat a bit challenging but I think he was waiting for a dog that was out and he was quite interested in our bear siting. I’m sure he was flummoxed by our accent/dialect as well!
We stopped at a couple of the Visitor Centers. We had lunch at one and were surprised to discover sugar on our sweet potato fries rather than salt. Will need further investigation to determine if this is a regional preference! A smaller center had a nice walk out to a restored lock. It also had all child sized facilities in the bathroom and the path to the lock was made for very tiny feet. Guess we know who their target audience is!
We really wanted to visit the Blue Ridge Music Center but time was getting tight and nasty weather was on the way so we left the parkway for the interstate and the nasty storms tracked us down. It was tough driving so we headed straight for Fries with a stop for provisions. The AirBnB in Fries is a beautifully renovated 1910 house and we were greeted with a welcome basket including homemade banana bread!