The Leaf Peepers

Took the family leaf peeping yesterday.

Last year Daleen sort of inherited a SUV from her sister. It had been sitting in our driveway for quite a long time and she was finally able to get the paperwork straightened out so we could re-title it and get it registered. After we got it all registered and it passed inspection, I decided what the car needed was a nice, long road trip to give it a good shakedown. With the leaves changing, we figured a trip up to the mountains would be a great way to break the car in and check out the fall foliage.

We used to go leaf peeping when we lived in New England. Every fall, we would head north from Boston on Interstate 93 to Franconia Notch State Park in New Hampshire. From there, we would turn east onto the Kancamagus Highway which runs across the White Mountains to the town of North Conway, which is a big ski and vacation resort town. The foliage up there has always just been completely unbelievable. From North Conway, we would then take Rt 16 south to Portsmouth, NH where we would catch interstate 95 south back to Mass. It's a good trip. If you're ever up that way, you should check it out.

Yesterday, we didn't really have a pre-planned route figured out, but we ended up taking Rt 250 (Broad Street) from Richmond all the way out to Charlottesville, VA. It was a nice ride, very scenic, but sort of slow at times due to all the other cars out on the road filled with folks doing the same thing we were.

Once in Charlottesville, we picked up Interstate 64 west and headed up to Afton Mountain where we got onto the Blue Ridge Parkway going south. There was some good leaf coloring on the ride up. However, there was still a lot of green on the trees until we got up onto the mountain. If you have never been on the Blue Ridge Parkway, it is a FUN road to drive on. The speed limit is 45 MPH, but in a lot of places, it would be suicide to try and even drive that fast. It's a very windy road and there are several places where the road pretty much just drops off on one side and you can see right down into the Shenandoah Valley. The fact there really aren't many guardrails makes the drive even more exciting. The leaves up on the parkway were excellent. Loads of color there, although I think in another week or two, it will be even more spectacular.

I wished we had taken a faster and more agile car than the SUV we were in. A convertible would have been even better as it was still nice and fairly warm out. Daleen was a great sport on the trip. She gets horrible car sickness, but she seemed ok until we were coming down the mountain. We decided to take Rt 60 all the way home. It intersects with the Parkway so that ended up being an easy choice. However, the trip back down was like driving on a downhill slalom course. I could tell Daleen was turning a little green on us, but the survived and recovered quickly once the road straightened back out.

Our plan was to stop for dinner on the way back home. However, I can tell you that Rt 60 between the parkway and Powhatan is pretty bleak and we ended up coming all the way back to have dinner at Allen's chinese restaurant..... Colin loves the lo-mein noodles and this chinese donut thingy they give you at the end. It was a great way to end the trip.

If you have some time in the next week or so, I would recommend taking a ride up to the mountains and see this display of color. (Gas is certainly cheap enough right now.) It's a good activity for the family and there are plenty of places to stop and view the scenery or just walk around. Packing a picnic lunch would also really be a great idea.

We really had a great time together. I think we're going to try and make this an annual event. When Colin gets a little older, I even see us turning this into a fall foliage hiking/camping trip. Breaking up the trip would definitely make it easier on Daleen's car sickness, so I think it will be an easy sell..... and besides, who doesn't like camping?