{"id":382,"date":"2012-06-03T03:16:45","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T03:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/?p=382"},"modified":"2012-06-03T03:49:06","modified_gmt":"2012-06-03T03:49:06","slug":"the-open-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/2012\/06\/the-open-road\/","title":{"rendered":"The Open Road"},"content":{"rendered":"

DC was great.\u00a0 But you\u2019re not really on a road trip until you\u2019re out on the open road, in some beautiful rural area.\u00a0 Preferably overtaking a tractor or two for extra authenticity.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, DC happens to be very close to two of the USA\u2019s longest and most scenic parkways \u2013 the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway.\u00a0 Together, these make up about 575 miles of gently (well\u2026for the most part anyway) winding roads passing through some absolutely spectacular countryside \u2013 views for miles at every turning point.\u00a0 To put it into perspective, that\u2019s the same distance as driving from London to Inverness – but all on National Park designated roadways.<\/p>\n

In total we spent 3 and a bit days cruising down from DC through West Virginia and down into North Carolina.\u00a0 We loved it.<\/p>\n

The Nature!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh yes, lots of nature.\u00a0 Mainly to be fair in the form of nasty little beasties trying to eat my lunch time sarnies but also some proper stuff.\u00a0 We saw some men on horses, some ground hogs (is that why it took 3 days?), lots of birds, plenty of insects, a snake (fortunately dead) and 2 dung beetles with requisite ball of dung (JUST managed to avoid the temptation to boot their dung off into the far distance).<\/p>\n

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We didn\u2019t QUITE see a bear but apparently were about 10 minutes away from having done so. Quite a relief that we didn\u2019t actually as at that point in time we had yet to put in place a formal \u201cpeeing your pants doesn\u2019t count if it\u2019s because there\u2019s a bear\u201d amnesty.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s in place I\u2019m much more relaxed about a potential encounter with possibly the only wild animal who could kill you without blinking yet whose reputation (at least in the UK) is based primarily on the honey loving grizzly from that popular kids TV series, Gentle Ben\u2026.<\/p>\n

We did however spend the next few days both practicing our bear scaring tactics as well as initiating an advanced awareness testing game of skill: \u201cSpot the Predator\u201d\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

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The Trees!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you like trees? Do you really, really like trees? Are you utterly fanatical about trees? Do you have borderline pathological personality traits regarding trees? Is your name Daniel Simon? Good.\u00a0 Because on the Blue Ridge Parkway you are going to see a LOT of trees. Our record was probably a four hour section of a six hour hike with a view of \u2026 wait for it \u2026 trees.<\/p>\n

The Great Outdoors!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The drive took us through some amazing countryside, including the famous Shenandoah national park, and for quite some way ran parallel with the Appalachian Trail (this is an INCREDIBLE trail running 2,178 miles up the Eastern Coast of the USA.\u00a0 Some lunatics have apparently been known to hike the entire trail over the course of a few spare months. \u00a0(sans deodorant).\u00a0 The perfect place to get our hiking on.<\/p>\n

Walk 1 was short (well, 2.5 hours), deeply scenic and entirely wonderful.<\/p>\n

For walk 2 we wanted a bit more of a challenge, so plumped for a 10.8 mile \u201cmoderate\u201d trail, which proved to be a slightly unexpected six hour marathon comprising a steep 2,000 foot vertical descent followed by a (slightly less) steep 2,000 foot vertical ascent.\u00a0 Through trees.\u00a0 Did we mention the trees?<\/p>\n

Boy we ate well that night.<\/p>\n

Such a beautiful area and such a great intro to our road trip \u2013 really it\u2019s hard to express in words.\u00a0 So check out the gallery \u2013 the pics really do this part of the trip justice.<\/p>\n\n\t\t