The Blue Ridge Parkway celebrates its 75th anniversary this year (2010). Construction began near Cumberland Knob near the state lines of North Carolina and Virginia in 1935 on the 469-mile road that would connect Shenandoah National Park with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park through the spine of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. It was completed in 1983 with the construction of the Viaduct around Grandfather Mountain. I’ve enjoyed it since 1978.

One reason why I love the Blue Ridge Parkway is that the sky meets the land in tangible ways. Whether it’s from the sun’s rays finding liberty through the clouds or beaming past trees in the fog, clouds lifting off the valleys or rime ice on pine needles, there always seems to be more about the atmosphere here besides merely breathing in and out… it can, indeed, be breathtaking. I attempted to make that evident in this image.

Overcast days really make color stand out… it helps for it not to be too blustery a day as well, so you can see detail in that color. This was a set of vertical images of just such a condition stitched together with Photoshop to give a big (20"x46") panorama overlooking Herrin Knob (just beyond the near ridge). A rather stout hiking trail goes around Tanasee Bald into Herring Knob. Tanasee Bald is said to be the traditional home of the mythical Cherokee giant Tsul ‘Kalu. Mythical or not, I had to admonish him to stop blowing the leaves around long enough to get this shot. He thinks that's funny!

Giving further evidence to the kind of images this kind of day produces, one of my Flickr friends, Mark VanDyke, was off a short ways in the distance of this image at likely about the same time of day... take a look at his excellent photo of Courthouse Falls here: www.flickr.com/photos/markvandyke/5099659757/ Give him a shout. I'm sure he'd appreciate it.