We jumped in the car this morning and headed along the Blue Ridge Parkway for a three day excursion to Boone, a college town a little more than an hour away. There is so much to see in that direction we wanted to take our time. Since we drove on the Parkway a couple of weeks ago the leaves have begun to explode and our path was flanked by a corridor with a multitude of greens, reds, oranges and chartreuse.
I had to photograph this old pic when we were at Blowing Rock.
This is Grandfather Mountain:
I guess if you look at it for a few seconds, yes, it resembles a reclined snoring Grandfather’s profile, open-mouthed after a hefty Sunday dinner, crashed on the sofa.
The irises here are in full bloom now and the Peonies are about to pop open.
Doug says that back in Maine the daffodils are beginning to bloom in our garden but here, the season here is clearly 4 – 6 weeks ahead of our season in Maine.
Boone (yes, it’s the home of Daniel Boone); is a vibrant, mountain college town, very artsy and getting there is a reward in itself, a lovely peaceful drive along The Blue Ridge Parkway via Tennessee. This is the charming Visitor’s Center in Tennessee. We like to stop at these places to gather info and walk Zuma.
On a hike just off the Parkway, we saw lots of wildflowers beaming humbly from between rocky crevices:
I do have to say, for the seven dollar entrance fee per person, Blowing Rock is a pretty cool experience. It was far from snowing upside down but it was breezy and yes, my hair did blow up off my head. The views are definitely mind-blowing.
Speaking of hair-dos, Doug’s hair stayed put but that’s another story. Doug has the BEST HAIR EVER (think Kenny Rogers or better still, Anderson Cooper); so, about ten days ago we were at WEDGE and there is this really super cool hair salon in the facility. And several of the guy stylists are outish and gay and I thought this would be a great experience for Doug to have a haircut at a salon instead of his regular barber (nothing against his barber who does a fabulous job but I thought it would be fun for Doug to do the salon thing, you know fancy conditioner and all). So, I convinced Doug (after one beer) that he needed to get his hair cut there. He immediately walked over and made an appointment. Research Queen checked Trip Advisor and, to our horror, I discovered that Doug was going to be clipped by a woman with horrific reviews. Like, aaah. Apparently she had made some horrible mistakes, cutting three months of hair growth off a bride-to-be, plunking herself in a chair and bursting into tears in front of another client and requesting her boss repair her mistakes. OMG. What have I done?!
I explained to Doug that he may be shorn like a sheep. He even joked about her carving her initial into the back of his head. I was nervous. Doug was not in the least bit concerned. He coolly strolled to his appointment the following morning. Brave soul that he is. I had a lot of fun teasing him the night before about what a horror show it could turn into but he wasn’t falling for my sick sense of humor. When he emerged, it looked fine, just DIFFERENT but he said once he washed it he was going to be okay with it. Then, after a couple of days, he got back to Maine and booked in with his regular barber who shook his head and pointed out the errors in the cut. It’s all fixed now. I really like this view!
Travels With Zuma 