April 26th - The World from MY Camera

As we travel through the US on our trip, Clive and I see so many different things. And sometimes I really do mean DIFFERENT things. Clive has a tendency to see the "big picture", while I also try to take in the "little picture". Things look so different through the eyes of a close up lens. Little things become BIG things when caught in the magnification capabilities of a good digital camera on macro setting!!!! Suddenly it's not just a forest.... it's a tiny spring flower peeking it's head through a nest of dead leaves left over from last year's splendor. It's not a whole tree, but the texture of it's bark. The splash of a fish jumping in fear of my shadow! A tiny squirrel foraging for food in the undergrowth. Instead of a magnificent mansion, it's the proud peacock strutting his stuff for the camera. Sometimes just turning the camera away from the crowd will let you spot something as neat as a cat who thinks because his head is hidden, he's invisible!!!

I love looking at the world through the eyes of my camera. Most of the time I just pass by my "weird" pictures, because they are not telling the story of the day's adventures. Today I was going through the different albums trying to figure out where I was at in the blog, and I realized that I had a collection of photos that made up their own category. I have picked out what I think are the best of the photos my camera's wandering eye has captured. I don't know the names of all the plants and flowers, but that doesn't lessen my enjoyment of them. The pictures look best when enlarged as you can pick out all the tiny little natural details in each scene which caught my camera's attention.

Nature is a wonderful thing. Everywhere you look, it is painting another beautiful picture. The greatest thing about it is that there is no end to it!!!!

Trillium and Little Yellow Flowers nestling in the dead leaves.
Dogwood Blooms by the River.
A Beautiful Iris
Lofty Wisteria
Wisteria Vines
Vines, Trees and Sweet Wisteria
Tulip Tree Blossoms
Tulip Tree Bark
Mauve Trillium
Tree Root

Frisky Squirrel

Silver Bells
Artistic Tree Roots
Shy Kitty
Mysterious Cave?
Red Bud Beautiful Flower Bed
?
Rocks and Water
Pink Dogwood
Prideful Peacock

Precious Pansies
Opulent Oranges
Mystery Bloom Pretty Yellow Flowers
Pretty Purple Flowers

Pretty Weird
Any Little Bit of Dirt Provides a Home for New Growth
Bashful Wisteria
Red Hybiscus
Nature's Bouquet

Grass and Water
A Little Pixie's Home
True Love
A Flash! A Flip! Away!

Hostile Territory
A River in Flood
Flowers, Rocks and Water

April 16 - Day of Rest

OK. I know that there are a million things to do and a million beautiful vistas to see and a million trails to hike in these mountains and a million wonderful roads to drive down on a beautiful sunny day. I don't care. I've been on the move, flying home and back, and touristing and touring and hiking and holidaying and viewing and everything non-stop since the 26th of March. Today I just went on strike!!!!! I needed a day of rest. Of course, around here that means cleaning up the motor home, but I only did even a little of that. I caught up on the blog (CHEERS!!!!!), played games with Aly over the internet(ain't technology GRAND!!!) and just goofed off all day. Clive did some polishing and cleaning counters and windows and such because he just doesn't know how to do nothing, but generally that's what we did....just did nothing!!!!!!

Here is the little squirrel, Aly. He was a really friendly little fellow and would come when you called him. Chico got a big kick out of him. Of course, I think he would rather have been chasing the little guy, but he just sat in the motor home and chirrped at it!!!
Tomorrow is another travel day. Then we hopefully meet up with Harold and Joyce, and then we have four days to get to Washington, DC. I'm sure we will be doing more touring on the way there, and I KNOW that once we get to Washington, Kate and Jim have a busy busy schedule for us.

So, for tonight..... night all!!

April 25 - Blue Ridge Parkway

At each Parkway entrance a directional sign indicates 'north' or 'south'. North, toward the north end of the Parkway, leads to Shenandoah National Park. South, toward the south end of the Parkway, leads to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.Outstanding scenery and recreational opportunities make the Blue Ridge Parkway one of the most popular units of the National Park System. "America's Favorite Drive" winds its way 469 miles through mountain meadows and past seemingly endless vistas. Split-rail fences, old farmsteads and historic structures complement spectacular views of distant mountains and neighboring valleys.The Parkway incorporates several recreation areas, some exceeding 6,000 acres. These parks within the Parkway have visitor centers, camp grounds, picnic areas, trails and, in many instances, concessionaire-operated lodges, restaurants, and other facilities.Building the Parkway through mountainous terrain was a monumental labor. Authorized in the 1930s as a Depression-era public works project, the Parkway was more than a half-century in the making. It was the nation's first, and ultimately longest, rural parkway, connecting Shenandoah National Park in Virginia with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. Enduring standards for parkway engineering and design were pioneered here.
Beautiful vistas of rolling mountains. So different from our BC Rockie Mountains, but still so beautiful. I can only imagine what it was like before those bugs ate all the trees though!
We left the parkway at Asheville, after only travelling 87 miles of the 469 miles of it's length.
These purple flowered trees are all along I-40 between Asheville and Hwy 66 where we turned down towards our RV park.
See this picture? See the water on the windshield? That's rain. If you could see the Miata, you would see it driving along the road with the top down!!!!! I TOLD Clive to pull in at the rest stop and put the top up because it was going to rain. It looks like rain, doesn't it? Yeah, it's rain. LOTS of rain. Rain on the windows. Rain on the tonneau cover. Rain on the seats. Rain on ME!
We looked kinda silly pulled off on the side of the road, scrambling in the pouring rain to get the tonneau cover off and the roof up. Actually, I think we probably set some kind of record there!!!!! Came home as two drowned rats, but it was a fun day, anyway!
Oh yeah, about three miles down the road the rain stopped and it was sunny and warm all the way back to the RV park!