Detour #75: Blue Ridge Parkway, USA
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Billed as “America’s Favorite (sic) Drive” the Blue Ridge Parkway stretches over 400 miles from the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.
It is an achingly beautiful journey, especially in the autumn or “fall”, as the locals would have it, when the leaves begin their annual transformation from green to yellow or fiery red.
What it is not is a fast drive. The maximum speed limit is just 45mph, slower in many places, as Clarkson, Hammond and May found to their dismay when the Top Gear trio turned up in A Porsche, Ferrari and Mercedes. “The Parkway was designed for leisurely motoring. Take your time and discover the grandeur of this special place,” reads the official Blue Ridge Parkway website.
The pace of the Parkway may be slow, but the scenery is anything except pedestrian. It follows the central Appalachian Mountains, some of the oldest in the world. It passes New River, which is, oddly, the oldest river in the United States and you can take a Detour to Linville Gorge, which is the deepest east of the Grand Canyon or to Whitewater Falls, which is the highest east of the Rockies. You’ll pass through some 26 tunnels bored through the mountainsides en route.
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It’s easy to make a week or more of this trip, with campgrounds, B&Bs, motels and fancy resorts offering almost limitless overnight options. There are breweries and vineyards to visit, award-winning cheesecakes to taste, watersports and winter sports, hikes, climbs and cycle routes to take in along the way.
So take it slow, slower even than Captain Slow himself, if you want get the best out of this American odyssey.
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