Thursday 18th July

After a stormy night, a beautiful morning began a long day’s drive to the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It wouldn’t appear at first that a winding road with a maximum speed limit of 45mph would be a good way of getting anywhere fast, but in fact it’s a bit like a slowed-down version of motorway driving, since there are no stops and no route-finding problems (and unlike British motorway driving, almost no other traffic).  Somewhere along the way we passed unheralded from North Carolina into Virginia.  The day’s only real highlight was a stop at Mabry’s Mill at Meadows of Dan, VA,

View showing two water channels (“flumes”) drawing water from different streams & leading to the mill-wheel

for a look around and some lunch.  After a bit of shopping in Waynesboro at the northern end of the Parkway, we carried on down to Charlottesville and our favourite Sleep Inn again.