The Blue Ridge Parkway and the Roads Home

On the day we left Asheville, as planned, we went north of the Blue Ridge Parkway to see Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi River.

The bottom line is that we did not make it to Mount Mitchell.  We ended up driving with a cloud surrounding us which made visibility about 15 to 20 feet.  We could barely see the car's tail lights in front of us and we were following dangerously close.

When we begin going up in the mountain ridges the turning of the leaves were at their peak.  Beautiful.  But once we were inside the cloud everything was stark white.

These are the photos taken that last day, before and after going inside the cloud.

With the digital camera, not having to account for wasted film, we went on a shooting spree.  During the entire trip we shot over 400 pictures, and over half of them were on  the last day.  You will notice on the trip back we developed an appreciation of pretty clouds.

See the low could flying directly over us.  It swallowed us.

The rest of the pictures are after the cloud episode.

The Nantahala River