It goes without saying that this ride was gorgeous, but surprisingly tiring. It's two-lanes, 45 mph and curvy. So curvy that we couldn't use cruise control, and with the traffic the clutch and gas hand was tired.
The day we rode the BRP was cold. It was about 50 degrees and sunny however the BRP is the crest of the hill, placing us at an elevation of 2000+. It's lined with trees, parks, houses and farms. The trees provide wonderful shade and I'm sure that on a hot and humid day, the BRP is the perfect ride to cool off on.
We stopped at Mabry Grist Mill a historic site, and working mill. It was built in 1810 and is working today. It was pretty neat to see and I can only image that there are a lot of family and wedding pictures taken there. Looked like great hiking in the area too but we hit the road. We were planning to be in Asheville by night fall. Notice though in the picture how bundled up and cold we look!
We stopped at Linville Falls, to warm up and unfortunately we didn't hike to the falls. It's a short hike but we were frozen. We did see a group of college students in the parking lot, getting ready for a hike. Unfortunately, one of the group members was getting busted for pot by the park rangers. Randy talked to them and I didn't think it was right to take a photo. At this point, we'd been riding since early morning and decided to pop off the BRP and take the quick way to Asheville.
BRP rises to an elevation of about 5000 and we cruised across the Lin Cove Viaduct, that is famous for engineering, architecture and fall leaves. All the trees were very green and I could only imagine the fall leaves - it would be amazing. We could see the viaduct before riding over it...very cool experience and the views were incredible. Here's a couple of photos - the fall leaves is by Paul Purser.
The BRP was gorgeous and it was fun to be on such a historic parkway.
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