The Last Post

So we left Washington behind and failed to get a decent picture of the Pentagon (too much security), to visit the Air and Space Museum Extension at Dulles Airport (The satnav, "Dashboard Lil" to her friends,  could not keep up with traffic) and Monticello, president Jefferson's home, (an invasion of elderly US patriots in big SUVs stopped us visiting the house). Worst day until...

We then had beautiful drive down the Appalachians, alongside the Shenandoah valley (as in the song!) to Roanoke. We had a very good Indian (Asian that is, not American)meal that evening and then watched a program on PBS (their equivalent of our Beeb) about the Outer banks, a sandbar dozens of miles long that run down the Atlantic coast an few hundred yards out from the mainland. Seemed beautiful - some people like the seaside - we decided to go through there on the last leg of our journey. 

 

 The town we stayed in is Kitty Hawk and it is perched on one of the larger banks and this is where the Wright brothers first managed powered flight of a heavier-than-air machine. The memorial and museum are a national park and extremely well run, as ever in the States. Very interesting talk from one of the rangers, a visit to the hilltop monument followed and then we drove back West towards Tennessee, stopping one night in Salisbury, North Carolina.






The next day we drove from there to Knoxville through the southern Appalachian mountains, known locally as the "Smokeys": beautiful early Autumn colours and the wiggliest section of the interstate road system we ever saw. "Smokeys" because terpenes (Google it!) emitted by the abundant pine trees turn the distant vistas smokey blue - very beautiful. Arrived in time for a haircut (getting rid of a three-month growth that prompted a security man in Washington into enquiring what Father Christmas was doing there in October!).



So now we are staying with our son Philip's family, rejoining Linda who had been there for a week previous.
 Yesterday we went back up into the Smokeys, to an old settlement, now abandoned, called Cades Cove: Autumn-coloured trees, old cabins, farm buildings and churches and three black bears up a tree!



 
That's it for now. In a few days, Peter will put out a further post describing aspects of the trip and the "American Way" of doing roads, toilets (!) and hospitality, etc...



[We must apologise for the ragged appearance of some of our blogs - we have still not worked out how to place pictures within the text with Blogger tools. Ed.]