The Blue Ridge Parkway is about 469 miles which begins in Virginia at the southern end of the Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park and continues through the Blue Ridge Mountain Range (a part of the Appalachians) to the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. The parkway is a beautiful road with stunning views, trails which are pet friendly, picnic grounds, campgrounds, and pull outs all along the way. Although some people drive 5th wheels and larger class A’s along the parkway, we chose not to drive the 5th wheel on it. Reservable campsites were all booked for the weekends, and we did not want to just hope for available first-come sites that we fit in, so we looked for RV parks along “easy driving” areas with nearby accessibility for leisure drives on the parkway.

We drove a number of sections of the parkway. We also did hikes along the parkway, since almost all of the trails allowed dogs. Linville Falls was the most crowded of our hikes by far, although we went during the week and we found the number of people manageable.


I love mountains and I have been drawn to the rugged mountains of the west over and over. But there is such a beauty in these old mountains of the Appalachians that leaves me breathless. When looking out from a high spot on the mountains, it almost looks like waves of a sea that go on and on endlessly over the horizon. This is what I tried to capture in my photos to share with you. The endless blue waves of the Appalachian mountains. And then we got lucky with a sparkle of fall foliage on top of that. How fortunate we are to be enveloped with all this beauty!
Beautiful photos!
Thank you, Pat. So glad you enjoyed them.
Really lovely photos that create the ambiance of the scenery!
Thank you, Carol. It is a beautiful area and lends itself to nice photos. I hope that the recent fires didn’t change it too much.