Road Trip Day 2

Wow! Have we been busy today.

Uncle Louie picked up Mamaw Stapleton this morning at 7:00 a.m. and they were off to Detroit. Mom & I grabbed some breakfast and then headed off to Wally World. We had some time to kill before we were suppose to meet up with Aunt Goldie around 10:00. It was a successful shopping excursion. Mom found some gift items and I found a few things as well. During the pass off of Mamaw Stapleton's stuff the handicapped parking permit was forgotten. No worries. We stopped at the post office in Ben Hur and sent it on it's way to Detroit. The darn thing should be there by Monday.

We had a nice visit with Goldie and finally left Pennington around noon. It's hard to believe that we piddled around in town for that long.

Our return trip began with the goal of getting to Abingdon,VA. Our first stop was the Southwest Museum. We toured all three floors and checked out the quilt exhibit that they had there.

Now we weren't about to hit the main drag to get there, we meandered along the back roads. By the time we got to Norton, Mom noticed a sign for High Knob Recreation area and we were off on another side journey. Now we didn't have any idea where we were going or how far we needed to go. But onward and upward we went, further and further up the mountain. We finally hit the entrance to the Jefferson National Park, but we still were not at our destination. Around and around we went, through the woods, up higher and higher, through switch back after switch back. The s-curves were really something.

We finally reached High Knob at the very tippy top of the mountain. It's hard to believe that there was an actual parking lot there. After a climb of about 100 yards we were at our destination, with no where else to go but back down the mountain. There were some breath taking vistas. The trees hadn't budded yet at that altitude, but we did see loads of butterflies. That I wasn't expecting.

On the trip back down the mountain we stopped for several photo opportunities, a waterfall, really cool looking rock formation and even a stop at the Upper Norton Reservoir.

Now that was quite a walk, it was hard to believe that there was actually a boat landing there. I certainly wouldn't want to drive up this mountain towing a trailer.

The rest of our journey was heading from Abingdon on to the Natural Bridge area. Tomorrow we are heading over to the Wildlife Safari Park. It promises to be another big adventure day.