Costa Rica

The company christmas trip this year was to Costa Rica. We stayed at the Rui Palace which was beautiful.

Tail of the Dragon

After driving the Blue Ridge Parkway I spent the next day driving the Cherohala Skyway and U.S. 129 at Deal's Gap, aka the Tail of the Dragon. It's 318 turns in 11 miles of complete fun.

Calderwood Dam.

A cool guy from Georgia in a Subaru WRX I was chasing through the corners.

Wearing yellow was a mistake, I had a huge bumblebee chasing me around when I got out of the car.

Cheoah Dam where they filmed The Fugitive.

Killboy's S2000.

The drive from the Cheoah River up to Deal's Gap.

Deal's Gap to the Tenn state line where the Dragon starts.

Blue Ridge Parkway

The second and third days of the trip were driving the entire, almost 500 mile, length of the Blue Ridge parkway from north to south.

The parkway starts in Virginia and ends up in North Carolina.

Otter Lake.

Mabry Mill. The drive is beautiful and every few miles is a scenic overlook or something else interesting to stop and see.

The Honda still looking pretty clean, minus the 1000 or so bugs smashed on the front bumper.

Lots of bikers out riding, the weather was perfect.

Upper Linville Falls.

The view of Linville falls looking down.

The Chimney view overlook.

Looking Glass Rock.

 

Once you hit North Carolina the mountains seem more rugged, the road curvier, and lots more tunnels.

Shenandoah National Park

After getting home from Milwaukee I spent a day unpacking, repacking, and washing the car, then left for another road trip. Day 1 was driving from Michigan to northern Virginia. The last 3 hours were a wonderful drive on the Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. Top down, music up, perfect curvy roads in the mountains. The hard part was trying to keep anywhere near the speed limit.

There was almost no traffic and only a few people. Every couple of miles there was a scenic overlook with another great view. I stopped at the first couple then would slow down, think "hmm, beautiful view but same as the last 100" and keep driving.

I loved the views, the layered look of mountain ridge after mountain ridge. They never look as beautiful in photos as they do in person.

The road mostly runs along the top of the mountain ridge. There a few tunnels in the northern part, many more when you get further south on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, but that's tomorrow and the next day.

I was lucky with the weather, a little sun, a few clouds, and only a few raindrops on a day 2.

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 This is from day 2, on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but it's very similar to the Skyline, mostly curves, running along the top of the ridge or through the forest.