May 9--Blue Ridge Parkway

Today was our last day of hiking/walking before heading home.  It was a good one.  As usual, I climbed stairs.  This stairwell only rates 2 stars, because the air was so stale and smelled of paint.  I hope I'm not harming myself by breathing stale stairwell air, ha.   I climbed 50 floors.

Then it started raining, but the radar showed it would be passing through soon.  So we headed to the Moses Cone stop on the Blue Ridge Parkway, very close by.  This was a wealthy mansion with several miles of carriage paths.  These are nice wide paths with gentle grades, meant for horses and carriages. The great thing was that Marilyn was able to walk as much as she wanted.  She covered about 5 miles and we parted ways near the end and I added an extra 2 miles.  It was enjoyable and scenic.

Then we ate lunch and I did a 2.5 mile walk around Price Lake.  Then time ran out and we did our errands to prepare for our journey home.  We have a long drive tomorrow so probably won't be able to walk at all.  I'll call it a rest day.

Here's the manor:

The view looking down the other way.  This was an apple orchard.  There are signs saying not to play in the dirt because of arsenic from the pesticides they used.

The carriage roads

Woods

 The view from the bottom, looking up to the manor

swans

geese

 fields and trees

 The apple barn

 The scenery was varied.

 Now I'm at Price Lake

Grandfather Mountain off in the distance