The Virginia Leg

We left South Carolina on Monday, May 10 and traveled all the way through North Carolina to the middle of the northern part of Virginia. We went out of our way a little bit to stop at the Martinsville, VA NASCAR speedway. It's only a half mile track and looks like the size of a football field. Very weird. I can't imagine cars racing there. I don't think the infield can hold the car haulers, let alone anything else.


Entrance to Martinsville's grandstand. This track is built right in a neighborhood in town.


Probably on turn 4 looking at turn 1


Other side of grandstand.

Our main reason for coming to Virginia was to drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is suppose to have 20 million visitors a year. We didn't know if the road was fit for the motor home so we chose a campground off of the interstate. Jellystone CG was off the beaten path by about 10 miles tucked away in the Virginia green winding hills. We used a CampClub USA membership for half price camping. Every time I wanted to use this card, we did not meet the specific requirements for the campground we were looking at, i.e. day of the week or time of the year. So just this one time will have paid for the membership!! Didn't see Yogi Bear but I bet he will be here for Memorial weekend when this place will be hopping.

Today (Tuesday) was our day for driving on the parkway. We decided to go the northern route from here, which is a 60 mile leg. Guess what? It rained all darn day and the high was only in the 40's!

The Blue Ridge mountains were gray! Not very much traffic, though. The drive reminded us of the Mississippi Great River Road and the Yellow River Forest drive.

This drive would be beautiful in the fall when the leaves were turning.

One tunnel, which would have accommodated the motor home.

Notice the "closed Tuesdays"!...after we drove about 10 miles out of our way on narrow roads to get to this vineyard! Oh, well....

On our drive back to the CG we did stop at a different winery and had free tasting. Helped the Virginia economy and bought a couple bottles.

Tomorrow we will be driving only about 150 miles to the Virginia/North Carolina border to Mt. Airy, the town that Andy Griffith's "Mayberry" was built from. We plan to end up at the Mayberry Campground. Maybe we'll see Barney and Goober!

Toodles.

P.S. Oh. Happy birthday to JHB's grand dog, Toni. She has made it to the ripe old age of 3. Remarkable for everything that she has ingested!
P.P.S. BWB and his wife listed their condo for sale in St. Thomas today. That is the first step to get back to civilization...somewhere other than "the rock".