Day 4: Blue Ridge Parkway adventure

These scenes here alone would make this a marvelous vacation.

But we have 85 miles of more scenery to go.

It will be a wild ride on day four.

First, we climb to the highest elevation on the Parkway in Virginia at almost 4,000 feet near Terrapin Mountain.

Tourist Edith Allen of Clarksville, VA says she loves the way the colors grow brighter and richer as you climb higher and higher.

Many of the colors start to fade as we make a dramatic descent of 33-hundred feet all the way down to the James River.

This is the lowest elevation on the entire Parkway at only 649 feet.

Cindy and I figure the final 60 miles of the Parkway will be less than exciting.

But we are wrong.

The Parkway rises again to more than 2,500 through the beautiful George Washington National Forest.

The colors here are splendid as we begin reflecting on our trip!

Here are our takeaways. Four days is not enough to travel the entire Blue Ridge Parkway if you want to do some hiking. We would recommend six days.

Elevation really does play a key role in the intensity of colors. And the colors seem to be popping later and later with the warmer climate.

We love the way people respect the Parkway. We saw very little litter along the way.

Travel Monday through Friday if you can to cut down on traffic congestion.

Book your lodging months in advance.

Watch for animals.

And savor the beauty.

At mile marker three near Rockfish Gap, Virginia, we realize our epic journey is almost over.

It’s been a great ride.

We celebrate at the northern entrance to the Parkway by wishing a couple from Ohio safe travels as they prepare to take the same trip we did from the opposite direction.

We finish the day in Charlottesville at Carter Mountain with its pumpkins and freshly picked apples from the orchard here.

This is clearly one of our best road trips ever.