Burnsville to the Peaks of Otter

We learned during out Mini trip last summer to pack light and keep moving, so we got an early start on Palm Sunday morning.  It was so cold that I scraped ice from the windshield.  We climbed up the winding switch-backing Route 80 through gorgeous countryside, heading for the Blue Ridge Parkway which makes its way northward at the very crest of this mountain range.  Strange, beautiful ruins along the way:

This is one of the most beautiful sections of the Parkway; in some places, you can gaze down on both sides of the ridge, left and right, to those long blue vistas for which this 469-mile park is known.  We climbed up to mountain-tops and dropped down to "gaps" named by settlers hundreds of years ago.

A ruffed grouse scooted out of our way across the road.  Peregrine falcons and red-tailed hawks soared out in the clear sky.

We had no definite plans for lunch.  On our Mini trip we had sometimes made impromptu picnics from motel breakfast bars and snacks we carried with us.  And we often relied on serendipity, a kind of happy accidental providence, to work its magic when we traveled, and it did not fail us today.  Martha suddenly said, "That looks like a restaurant down here," as we saw a stone building just off the parkway.  No sign on the road, just a few cars parked outside.  It turned out to be the Park Vista Inn and Restaurant, and we had a nice little lunch there surrounded by church-goers who knew about this farm-to-table, locally-sourced restaurant that we had stumbled upon.  That's what we love about traveling:  the unexpected sight along the road, the pleasant surprise, the sweet redeeming rewards of exploring.

We passed by Little Switzerland (Switzerland Inn not yet open) and Crabtree Falls; there were more bicycles on the road than we had expected, pulling the long grades and then flying down the long exhilarating down-slopes.  And a group of annoying motorcycles making their way far too slowly along, impossible to pass on a road like this one, who finally turned off at an overlook.

We also passed the oft-photographed Mabry Mill and stopped to take yet another photograph:

And Lonesome Pines cabins, too, looking down a long grass slope to the parkway, where we stayed in a tiny log cabin on our trip in 2014 - key under the mat and hand-written note on the kitchen counter.  We remember arriving in the evening as the sun was going down, after a summer thunderstorm, watching a rainbow from our porch.  What an evening that was!

And then finally we arrived at the Peaks of Otter Lodge, right on the Parkway itself, a place where we had stayed in 2014 and on earlier occasions in our life together.  We remember romantic nights here, screen windows open, awaking in the middle of the night and seeing deer grazing out on the grass in the moonlight.

This lodge is named after three mountain peaks in close proximity to each other, Flat Top, Harkening Hill, and Sharp Top (seen in the photo, which we climbed and explored three years ago).  Peaks of Otter Lake is a place of peace and stillness; you can sit on your balcony and watch the ripples made by fish rising to mayflies, or walk (or run) around its entire circumference and back again.

Such a peaceful place!  We could spend a lot of time here.  But we have places to go!