Location : Boone Virginia to Luray Virginia<\/p>\n
High Point: 3,650 feet on \u201cSkyline Drive\u201d, awesome, Martha loved it, what a drive!<\/p>\n
Low Point: Being escorted to a motel located \u201cright in town\u201d by the owner when actually the motel was\u00a0way out of town!\u00a0 The conversation between him and Steve as he tried to justify his description of the location of the motel was priceless. Panic of the day: The boys nearly losing their ball while playing their favorite game of \u201cscreen ball\u201d, bless.Quote of the day: Steve said that rather than get out into the freezing cold we could admire the view from our \u201ctheatre of the world\u201d, aka Martha\u2019s cab, very poetic Stevie \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\nToday was a very early start as we were aiming to get to and drive along both a stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline drive and get safely off the mountainous roads before sunset.\u00a0 So it was to be another long day on the road for the stage 8 crew, as we continued to eat up the miles from Phoenix to New York, via New Orleans, in only 2 weeks to meet our shipping schedule.\u00a0 However after quite a few hours on the road there was some urgent shipping and other admin to be taken care of so before we headed up into the mountains and completely lost our rather sporadic internet and mobile phone connectivity, for only the 2nd time in my 2 weeks on the road with FTFE, we actually stopped for lunch!\u00a0 McDonalds\u2026 hard to believe I know it but sadly it\u2019s normally the best option we have \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\nAdmin and hasty lunch done we hit the road again.\u00a0 As we came off the highways and approached the mountains we passed through what has be to my favorite of all the small towns we have seen so far, Steeles Tavern, like something out of a picture book.<\/p>\nThe Blue Ridge Parkway traverses the Appalachians from the Shenandoah National Park to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for 469 miles and offers ruggedly beautiful Alpine like vistas.\u00a0 Skyline drive is a 105 mile long road that redefines your idea of a scenic drive!\u00a0 Set in the Shenandoah National Park, one of the most spectacular National Parks in the country, you are constantly treated to an impressive view.\u00a0\u00a0 I think we all agreed that the early start was well worth it,\u00a0 as we were treated to hour after hour of fantastic driving and fabulous views.\u00a0 One of the points on our map of skyline drive was \u201c20 minute cliff\u201d we wondered how this name came about\u2026\u00a0 might it be that it is because it takes 20 minutes to fall down the cliff we wondered.\u00a0 Steve thought it might be interesting to test our theory and suggested we could use James\u2026\u00a0 they have been on the road together for a long time now.\u00a0 Being deep in the countryside today was a big day for animals we saw skunk, chipmunk, deer, horses and lots of cows as we passed through the first farming communities we\u2019ve seen on stage 8 on our way to the mountains.\u00a0 There was also however rather a lot of road kill today\u2026\u00a0 a wolf, a skunk, a cat\u2026.<\/p>\nThe people of the US are what has really made this trip for me, they are always so interested in what we are doing and very keen to help us on our way.\u00a0\u00a0 Today as we made our way along the stunning mountain road we were followed by a lady from one of the local volunteer fire and rescue teams.\u00a0 When we stopped for a driver change she pulled over and gave us one of her fire departments tops.\u00a0 We\u2019ve formed quite a collection of tops, badges, mugs, caps, t-shirts and patches from the kind fire fighters of the US, unique mementoes of our trip, thank you.<\/p>\nTake care y\u2019all<\/p>\nValerie<\/p>\n[flickr album=72157626083848537 num=30 size=Square]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Location : Boone Virginia to Luray Virginia High Point: 3,650 feet on \u201cSkyline Drive\u201d, awesome, Martha loved it, what a drive! Low Point: Being escorted to a motel located \u201cright in town\u201d by the owner when actually the motel was\u00a0way out of town!\u00a0 The conversation between him and Steve as he tried to justify his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-expedition-updates","category-stage-8-phoenix-to-new-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5155"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5911,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5155\/revisions\/5911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Today was a very early start as we were aiming to get to and drive along both a stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline drive and get safely off the mountainous roads before sunset.\u00a0 So it was to be another long day on the road for the stage 8 crew, as we continued to eat up the miles from Phoenix to New York, via New Orleans, in only 2 weeks to meet our shipping schedule.\u00a0 However after quite a few hours on the road there was some urgent shipping and other admin to be taken care of so before we headed up into the mountains and completely lost our rather sporadic internet and mobile phone connectivity, for only the 2nd time in my 2 weeks on the road with FTFE, we actually stopped for lunch!\u00a0 McDonalds\u2026 hard to believe I know it but sadly it\u2019s normally the best option we have \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n
Admin and hasty lunch done we hit the road again.\u00a0 As we came off the highways and approached the mountains we passed through what has be to my favorite of all the small towns we have seen so far, Steeles Tavern, like something out of a picture book.<\/p>\n
The Blue Ridge Parkway traverses the Appalachians from the Shenandoah National Park to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for 469 miles and offers ruggedly beautiful Alpine like vistas.\u00a0 Skyline drive is a 105 mile long road that redefines your idea of a scenic drive!\u00a0 Set in the Shenandoah National Park, one of the most spectacular National Parks in the country, you are constantly treated to an impressive view.\u00a0\u00a0 I think we all agreed that the early start was well worth it,\u00a0 as we were treated to hour after hour of fantastic driving and fabulous views.\u00a0 One of the points on our map of skyline drive was \u201c20 minute cliff\u201d we wondered how this name came about\u2026\u00a0 might it be that it is because it takes 20 minutes to fall down the cliff we wondered.\u00a0 Steve thought it might be interesting to test our theory and suggested we could use James\u2026\u00a0 they have been on the road together for a long time now.\u00a0 Being deep in the countryside today was a big day for animals we saw skunk, chipmunk, deer, horses and lots of cows as we passed through the first farming communities we\u2019ve seen on stage 8 on our way to the mountains.\u00a0 There was also however rather a lot of road kill today\u2026\u00a0 a wolf, a skunk, a cat\u2026.<\/p>\n
The people of the US are what has really made this trip for me, they are always so interested in what we are doing and very keen to help us on our way.\u00a0\u00a0 Today as we made our way along the stunning mountain road we were followed by a lady from one of the local volunteer fire and rescue teams.\u00a0 When we stopped for a driver change she pulled over and gave us one of her fire departments tops.\u00a0 We\u2019ve formed quite a collection of tops, badges, mugs, caps, t-shirts and patches from the kind fire fighters of the US, unique mementoes of our trip, thank you.<\/p>\n
Take care y\u2019all<\/p>\n
Valerie<\/p>\n
[flickr album=72157626083848537 num=30 size=Square]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Location : Boone Virginia to Luray Virginia High Point: 3,650 feet on \u201cSkyline Drive\u201d, awesome, Martha loved it, what a drive! Low Point: Being escorted to a motel located \u201cright in town\u201d by the owner when actually the motel was\u00a0way out of town!\u00a0 The conversation between him and Steve as he tried to justify his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-expedition-updates","category-stage-8-phoenix-to-new-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5155"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5911,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5155\/revisions\/5911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}