When Bob and I got back from my graduation from Oberlin College and a side trip to the wedding of Sarah Newcomb (a classmate), we settled in for a few weeks upstairs at my parents house. There was a bedroom and full bathroom up there, separate from the rest of the house. Counting our own wedding, we had been to two graduations and three weddings so far this month.
Before Bob and started our trip south, we took short trip north to go to the weddings of two of my first cousins -sisters who had a double wedding. The wedding was in Keyport, but the reception was at the yacht club in Red Bank, NJ
On the way to the reception, I took a photo of my parents and Bob shifting cameras - Bob is holding Dad's Bolex movie camera so that my parents can each have the still camera that they want to use for the wedding.
The two brides with their grooms and attendants. Catherine and John on the left Their little sister Susan is the one in the middle. And Mariby and Skip on the right
After the Navy picked up our furniture, Bob and I loaded up our station wagon and started driving south because Bob had orders to pilot training in Pensacola in July. We headed first for the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park
The Skyline Drive ended up in the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is very difficult to find maps which give any idea of the actual course of these roads. The first place we visited was Natural Bridge in Virginia and on the map it is slightly off the Blue Ridge Parkway, south of Lynchburg and the James River Visitor's Center
Looking up at the Natural Bridge
Bob holding up the roof
Bob did not like having his photo taken so sometimes he would want to take my camera and take a photo of me
I am at the Saddle Overlook which is unique in that there are excellent views from both sides of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The view on the parking lot side is of The Saddle and is best visited in the early afternoon since it is facing east
Middle Section of the Blue Ridge Parkway
We stopped next at the Mabry Mill Visitor's Center at Milepost 176 Ed Mabry built this mill, where he and his wife ground corn, sawed lumber, and operated a blacksmith shed for their neighbors for three decades. It was a community gathering place for the folks who called Meadows of Dan their home in the early twentieth century. I'm sitting on the millstones. I didn't apparently take a photo of the mill or it has been lost.
One of the 'cultural exhibits' of mountain living was this moonshine still on a Mabry Mill trail
We are looking over at Pilot Mountain in the distance - a metamorphic quartzite monadnock rising to a peak 2,421 feet above sea level, is one of the most distinctive natural features in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is a remnant of the ancient chain of Sauratown Mountains.
Bob and I took turns driving, and I was leaving one of the overlook parking lots, when I backed up a little to swing out. I hadn't realized that someone had come in behind me, and I ran into them - since I was hardly moving, no damage was really done, but Bob did not let me forget it. Because later , backing out of a parking space at the naval base hospital, I hit the protective barrier around a fire plug and broke a tail light. And when I took a neighbor to pick up her car at a gas station, I backed right into a light pole that was about the same color as the road surface. This time I hit hard enough to bend the bumper in the middle, but Bob took the bumper off and levered it straight.
Stone Mountain Located in Allegheny and Wilkes counties 60 miles northwest of Winston-Salem, Stone Mountain State Park is home to the 600-foot granite dome that is a designated National Natural Landmark and the historic Hutchinson Homestead, a restored mid-19th-century farm situated at the mountain base
I think after we passed Stone Mountain we stopped for the night.
I knew about switchback roads from visiting Colorado as a child. I didn't expect to find the same thing in NC because I really had not been to the mountains prior to the trip my husband and I made on our honeymoon in 1959, which is when I took this picture.
The main area of interest of the mountain area of NC is roughly bordered by I-26 on the east, S.C. 11 to the south, U.S. 441 to the east and U.S. 74 to the north.
One of the main roads here is the Blue Ridge Parkway which runs along the Pisgah Ridge, passing close to some of the some of the highest peaks in the eastern U.S. Near Richland Balsam the Parkway reaches its maximum elevation of 6,053 feet. The road is smooth, twisty, and free from any commercial distractions. To get gas, eats, or accommodation you have to come down off the Parkway into small towns far below. These exit mountain roads are also switch-back experiences. The Parkways averages 20 turns per mile- talking about blind turns with decent drops on either side. The speed limit is 45 mph.
Bob is standing on Blowing Rock pretending to throw something. Blowing Rock is a famous cliff featuring strong wind gusts that blow lightly thrown objects back to the thrower.
Here Bob is again having to have his picture taken at Grandfather Mountain. Grandfather Mountain State Park is not the same as the Grandfather Mountain Attraction. I think we were at the Attraction.
He did get to take my photo on the Swinging Bridge. I'm wearing a red skirt
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One of the visitor's centers
The Blue Ridge Parkway ends in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park
The primary thing I remember from our trip in 1959 is the heat and the traffic - crawling up the mountain behind slower and slower cars waiting for the engine to overheat. We didn't see much except the road and trees and the backs of the cars in front of us
We needed to get from here to Pensacola so that Bob could report in to the flight school class that started 1 July 1959
Before Bob and started our trip south, we took short trip north to go to the weddings of two of my first cousins -sisters who had a double wedding. The wedding was in Keyport, but the reception was at the yacht club in Red Bank, NJ
On the way to the reception, I took a photo of my parents and Bob shifting cameras - Bob is holding Dad's Bolex movie camera so that my parents can each have the still camera that they want to use for the wedding.
The two brides with their grooms and attendants. Catherine and John on the left Their little sister Susan is the one in the middle. And Mariby and Skip on the right
After the Navy picked up our furniture, Bob and I loaded up our station wagon and started driving south because Bob had orders to pilot training in Pensacola in July. We headed first for the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park
The Skyline Drive ended up in the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is very difficult to find maps which give any idea of the actual course of these roads. The first place we visited was Natural Bridge in Virginia and on the map it is slightly off the Blue Ridge Parkway, south of Lynchburg and the James River Visitor's Center
Looking up at the Natural Bridge
Bob holding up the roof
Bob did not like having his photo taken so sometimes he would want to take my camera and take a photo of me
I am at the Saddle Overlook which is unique in that there are excellent views from both sides of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The view on the parking lot side is of The Saddle and is best visited in the early afternoon since it is facing east
Middle Section of the Blue Ridge Parkway
We stopped next at the Mabry Mill Visitor's Center at Milepost 176 Ed Mabry built this mill, where he and his wife ground corn, sawed lumber, and operated a blacksmith shed for their neighbors for three decades. It was a community gathering place for the folks who called Meadows of Dan their home in the early twentieth century. I'm sitting on the millstones. I didn't apparently take a photo of the mill or it has been lost.
One of the 'cultural exhibits' of mountain living was this moonshine still on a Mabry Mill trail
We are looking over at Pilot Mountain in the distance - a metamorphic quartzite monadnock rising to a peak 2,421 feet above sea level, is one of the most distinctive natural features in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is a remnant of the ancient chain of Sauratown Mountains.
Bob and I took turns driving, and I was leaving one of the overlook parking lots, when I backed up a little to swing out. I hadn't realized that someone had come in behind me, and I ran into them - since I was hardly moving, no damage was really done, but Bob did not let me forget it. Because later , backing out of a parking space at the naval base hospital, I hit the protective barrier around a fire plug and broke a tail light. And when I took a neighbor to pick up her car at a gas station, I backed right into a light pole that was about the same color as the road surface. This time I hit hard enough to bend the bumper in the middle, but Bob took the bumper off and levered it straight.
Stone Mountain Located in Allegheny and Wilkes counties 60 miles northwest of Winston-Salem, Stone Mountain State Park is home to the 600-foot granite dome that is a designated National Natural Landmark and the historic Hutchinson Homestead, a restored mid-19th-century farm situated at the mountain base
I think after we passed Stone Mountain we stopped for the night.
I knew about switchback roads from visiting Colorado as a child. I didn't expect to find the same thing in NC because I really had not been to the mountains prior to the trip my husband and I made on our honeymoon in 1959, which is when I took this picture.
The main area of interest of the mountain area of NC is roughly bordered by I-26 on the east, S.C. 11 to the south, U.S. 441 to the east and U.S. 74 to the north.
One of the main roads here is the Blue Ridge Parkway which runs along the Pisgah Ridge, passing close to some of the some of the highest peaks in the eastern U.S. Near Richland Balsam the Parkway reaches its maximum elevation of 6,053 feet. The road is smooth, twisty, and free from any commercial distractions. To get gas, eats, or accommodation you have to come down off the Parkway into small towns far below. These exit mountain roads are also switch-back experiences. The Parkways averages 20 turns per mile- talking about blind turns with decent drops on either side. The speed limit is 45 mph.
Bob is standing on Blowing Rock pretending to throw something. Blowing Rock is a famous cliff featuring strong wind gusts that blow lightly thrown objects back to the thrower.
Here Bob is again having to have his picture taken at Grandfather Mountain. Grandfather Mountain State Park is not the same as the Grandfather Mountain Attraction. I think we were at the Attraction.
He did get to take my photo on the Swinging Bridge. I'm wearing a red skirt
One of the visitor's centers
The Blue Ridge Parkway ends in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park
The primary thing I remember from our trip in 1959 is the heat and the traffic - crawling up the mountain behind slower and slower cars waiting for the engine to overheat. We didn't see much except the road and trees and the backs of the cars in front of us
We needed to get from here to Pensacola so that Bob could report in to the flight school class that started 1 July 1959
- Next entry in the series 'Life of a Navy Wife 1959-1979': Starting Married Life - July 1959 to June 1960
