Our vacation was drawing to a close. As we had been wandering farther and farther from home, we gave ourselves two days to drive back.

For the first day of our return trip, we decided to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway, a famous two lane scenic road that skirts along the mountain tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains and would take us through Virginia.

We had an inauspicious start. Stopping at the info center near where we got on, we were informed of a road collapse near our start causing a nine mile closing, in a place without an easy alternate route, causing a rather round about detour.

Before we left the highway, we stopped at a shop nearby that features crafts manufactured by local artisans. These were not inexpensive goods but highly crafted works of art. We saw more of the glass chickens and chicks we admired downtown. As our trip was under budget, thanks to all the hospitality, we splurged on a white mother chicken and two striped chicks for our living room.

The detour, the first of three, rather than being an inconvenience, took us through some splendid farmland. Some farms were beautiful with attractive buildings and wooden fences. Others were showing signs of how difficult it is to make a go of farming these days.

We took a shortcut we were warned about at the info center, up a mountain to get us back on the Parkway as early as possible. This led us on a road as hair raising as some roads we encountered in Italy—sharp switchback curves and no guardrails! It reminded us of the detour we took to get to Volterra in Tuscany in 2005.

We found the best barbecue on our trip in Linville Falls, an isolated mountain town, and we paid a visit to the namesake falls for a little hiking and taking photos.

Our drive was most picturesque but as evening fell we decide to call it a day. A good size city, Roanoke, VA came up as a waypoint so we picked a place there for the night. An armed guard at the Holiday Inn and one at the first restaurant we tried seemed to indicate the Roanoke had fallen on hard times. We ended up at a Ruby Tuesday's with one of the most calorie laden menus we'd seen.