Day 176 to 181 Oh the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia....

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With Brexit vote happening back in the UK, the fallout appears bizarre from over the pond and the drop of the pound against the dollar hasn’t helped with our budgeting on our final weeks in the US.

We now head out of Nashville into the countryside. We had been keen to see an actual plantation house of the deep south. On our way was ‘the Hermitage’, home of Andrew Jackson the 7^th President of the United States. He was a self-made man and influential in the early American history, notably defeating the British at New Orleans in 1815. He was a popular president and was a man of people, on the downside he signed the Indian Removal act that drove Indians west of the Mississippi River and he was pro slavery.

After being greeted by 18^th Century dressed guides we were shown around the house. Which had been restored in that times glory. Then had a wander around the grounds and huts that existed then. One hut was for one of the slaves that was the last to live there, Uncle Alfred, who served as one of the first tour guides when it was turned into a museum. There was also an original timber house lived in by Andrew Jackson prior to the new house being built, subsequently used to house slaves.

We continue east to the city of Asheville. Although here only to pick up the road for the next part of our journey, the assistant in the visitor centre urged us to take a walking tour of the town. We were eager to proceed on our journey, but we took his advice and were glad we did. Like Oamaru in New Zealand, through providence this city has managed to avoid the bulldozer and many faceless new building developments. There are lovely art deco building surviving, a nod to to the city’s more prosperous times.

Back in the car we pick up the road, and the reason we came here, The Blue Ridge Mountain parkway, 469 miles, through the Appalachians. This road is one of the top 10 scenic drives in the US. It is a wonderful, commercial traffic free, single track road that winds its way, staying as close to the ridgetop as possible. Although I’d thought we’d had enough of driving through trees, there is enough views and lookouts to make it thoroughly enjoyable - notwithstanding the snake we ran over, or the wild turkey that managed to ‘fly’ out of the way.

As if to complement our Music Cities visits, on the Parkway is an excellent, Appalachian music museum. Music is in the blood here, and was developed from the Scottish and Irish immigrants, together with incoming influences of the African slaves. I never knew the banjo was a development of an instrument from Africa.

The Parkway runs into Skyline Drive and the Shenandoah National Park, which has more amazing scenery and gorgeous wild flowers.

The end of the Parkway brings us close to Washington, and it seemed sensible to spend a couple of nights here to see the sights. Nothing replaces seeing famous places you have seen day in day out on the TV than taking a walk around them. That’s the first thing we did before the heat of the sun. Strolling past the Whitehouse, turning right, we passed the iconic Washington Monument, the 2^nd World War memorial, onwards to the reflective pool and Lincolns Memorial. It’s a great view back, towards Capitol Hill. Either side are memorials, to the Vietnam and Korean War as well as an impressive one to Martin Luther King Jr.

With the midday heat its time to dive into the museums. James Smithson bequeathed money to ‘increase and diffusion of knowledge’ in 1829, and although he never visited America, the Smithsonian is one of the largest and important museums in the world. Although we were annoyed by a not very helpful security guard, (who seemed to think Alison posed a national threat with her wallet ninja) we persevered and had a wander through the Natural History, with its live bug exhibition and terrific wildlife photography exhibition, then across the road to the museum of Space and Flight. With Wrights Flyer One, Lindbergs ‘Spirit of St Louis’ and the original Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules.

Travelling through the USA we had understood a bit more about the War of Independence. In Gettysburg, 2 hrs outside Washington, we got the chance to learn about the other big event in America’s history, the American Civil War. Gettysburg was the location of one of the key battles of the war. You can have a bus tour of the whole battlefield, but we just visited the Museum, which showed a film detailing the background to the war as well as the battle. We then had a view of the Cyclorama a highly detailed painting of Picketts Charge, originally created in 1883 and housed in Boston, it has been restored and wonderfully reset in the Gettysburg museum.

It’s been a great, if tiring, trip across the states, before New York and heading home it’s time to head to the seaside…

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Photos

The Hermitage
Home of the 7th President Andrew Jackson

F W Woolworth store
Now an craft co operative