S/V Good Morning Vietnam: VMI, Lexington, Blue Ridge Parkway and Bristol Tennessee

Hi All,
Time for an update on what we've been doing the last few days.

Driving down Skyline Drive we made it to Lexington, Virginia, home of much confederate history. On the way to Lexington we had our first bit of mechanical trouble- the "Check Engine" light came on in the truck. We were able to get the diagnostic codes read at Advance Auto Parts and found out there was an issue with one of the turbo chargers. I won't go into detail about it but the engine is still under warranty and will need some work when we get to Dallas. Saturday night we went to Natural Bridge Speedway for some Saturday night dirt track racing. Sunday we walked around the Virginia Military Institute, took a horse drawn carriage tour around town, toured the Robert E Lee Chapel and Stonewall Jackson's house. Wonderful!

Monday we left the Lexington area and drove down the Blue Ridge Parkway. It's a bit different than Skyline Drive but just as beautiful. As we were about to get on the Parkway, on a small two lane road, I had to stop because two chickens were crossing the road in front of us. I asked them why they were crossing the road but they just looked at each other, shrugged and turned around. I don't think they knew why they crossed the road either. Along the Blue Ridge Parkway we easily saw 20 deer and just as many wild turkey (birds not bourbon) in the 100 or so miles.

Monday night we stopped at a campground in Fancy Gap. It was nice but it wasn't fancy. Tuesday we drove on to Cedar Bluff, Virginia and visited with some long time family friends of Susan. We had a nice evening with Ray and Sue Fortner on Susan's birthday.

Our goal is to spend as little time on interstate highways as possible. It takes us longer to get some place but it is a lot more interesting. Wednesday we continued our back roads travel to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee with a short stop in Bristol to see Bristol Motor Speedway. When we crossed into Tennessee I noticed flags were at half staff and wondered why. At Bristol Motor Speedway we saw that Pat Summitt, the extraordinary women's basketball coach at the University of Tennessee had died Tuesday. She won more NCAA Division I basketball games (1098) than any coach, man or woman. Flags all over Tennessee are at half staff.

Tonight we are at a campground in Pigeon Forge, the home of Dollywood. What a difference from the hard time, coal country we were in all day. I'll stick with the backwoods, thank you.

Here are some pictures from the last couple of days...