My wife and I drove around and about the Blue Ridge Parkway this fall. I was appalled at the Appalachian Music 'thing'. Seems like some cookie cutter building meant as a federal museum where you pay x and get so many square feet of steel and concrete instead of authentic buildings, or replicas. I wished they put up an old pole barn with crooked steps and a wheel chair ramp of hickory. For the number of people running about you'd think there'd be more commerce.

Asking about getting a hotel room somewhere the woman told us there were so many "leaf peepers" this year that the spots were hard to get. Add in a rascally dog/puppy who's crazy and you'd understand the problems.

We went south at the end of Lake Ontario, NY, Syracuse, Carlisle PA, Scranton PA (Steamtown), Richmond VA, The Outer Banks, Hickory, Boone (aka Daniel), then shot back north as I was getting too tired.

I've always hated travelling by agenda, unless one gets on a plane, and then it's sort of a good thing.

But that said, we did walk into the Edinburgh airport a few years back and as for tickets, over the channel. We did get the are you nuts looks, but we found a flight to Amsterdam and then there we were. Train pass for all of Europe, they don't tell you only so may tickets are given out on those passes, and NO you cannot take the express train to Nice from Paris. But you can take slower regional trains. More fun anyway.

We were on that Blue Ridge Parkway just 10 days or so before the 'hurricane', well the outer banks too for that matter, and the weather was balmy.

I do need warmth, but the new thyroid meds leave me hot and cold and cold and cold.

Off to walk the dog in the conservation area, sit on a log, smoke a pipe, and make a fire to ensure I stay warm. Sorry if yer mad I didn't visit, but we might have ended up in downtown NY and I'd have to call and cancel. The wind blows me about...I like it that way.

John Conley
Musica est vita