Heading north on I-26, we caught our first glimpse of the Blue Ridge Mountains!
We pulled into Rutledge Lake RV Resort at about a cup of coffee after 12 noon. It was only 73 miles, so it went by in a hurry. We did "enjoy" driving over Saluda grade, with 7% grades in several places. At one point, we crossed over the Eastern Continental Divide at 2,330 feet. OK. We're in site 46, a nice wide pull-through site. The utilities work fine and the site is perfectly satellite friendly, as well as having Spartanburg local tv channels available. Only drawback? Wifi is next to non-existent. We are near a restroom building with an antenna, but cannot connect. Oh well.
Since we had arrived so early in the afternoon, we decided to take a drive around the area. We chose Chimney Rock and Lake Lure as our destination for the afternoon. Twenty-seven miles later, we arrived, after going through the towns of Good Luck and Bat Cave. For the last few miles, the road followed the Broad River through a beautiful canyon.
Chimney Rock State Park is accessed by a curving, narrow mountain road. The rock can be seen from the halfway point, where a ticket booth is set up. At $15 per person to get to the trail up the rock, we decided to pass and just take a picture.
That's an American Flag on the top of the rock, with the trail going up the back side, we're told. The trail also goes to Bridalveil Falls, about a 1/4 mile beyond the rock.
Following a beautiful, shaded road, we continued on a few miles to Lake Lure.
The lake is very large, with many houseboats and ski boats. Today, the beach was very busy as well.
We entered a route into our GPS that would take us into downtown Asheville, which is just a few miles north of Fletcher. Not surprisingly, "Marilyn" decided to take us on the scenic route through Edneyville and Gerton, on unpaved roads!
Can you spell d-e-l-i-v-e-r-a-n-c-e?
The route took us over the Eastern Continental Divide again, this time at 2,880 feet, added about 30 miles to the journey, and was through some of the most beautiful country we've seen this year. Maybe it's because we have lived in the foothills of impressive mountain ranges for years, but this area really struck a cord with us. The Blue Ridge Parkway wanders through Asheville, and we intend to drive over a few miles of it while we're in the area. These mountains are just exactly like the pictures! Beautiful! Of course, the temperatures are a great deal cooler, being at about 88 this afternoon. We may not need the a/c this evening, which will be a first since we left Arizona last March!
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