Scenic Byways

After our ride on Cass Scenic Railroad, we continued traveling the scenic highways to Lexington, Virginia. It was 230 miles from home to Lexington, with no interstates and much of the trip through National Forest. The road was so pretty, we decided to travel back the same way we came and stop at sites along the way. In Warm Springs there was an overlook where a toll house once presided on the Virginia "Turnpike". We traveled through a gorgeous section called Goshen Pass with more overlooks and trout stocked rivers. All along the highway were rock formations and on Brown's Mountain was a geologic oddity called "Devil's Backbone" Anticline. The short definition for anticline is "an upfold or arch in rocks". It extended for 65 miles!

There were many twists and turns in the road. When I asked Bob once why he stopped, he replied that "the turn radius of the road exceeded the radius of the car". In 2 consecutive turns with a 10 MPH sign he said "that means you're going back the way you came"! The scenery was so beautiful, I never picked up a magazine the whole trip. We rode with our windows down-no air conditioning-and used less gas than we would have on interstate travel.

We also stopped at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Science Center in Green Bank where we got some fun pictures I'll save for another layout.

We'd planned on stopping at an historical cemetery further north but were delayed--for 1 hour--at literally, the worst parade ever! Here's a picture, with a caption I'll have to censor:

"The _ _ _ _ _ iest Parade Ever".