Fall-ing In Love with the Season

Every year when I was growing up, my family would always take a trip in October along the Blue Ridge Parkway to see the fall leaves and take in the fall mountain sites. We still do this annually, but now our group has really increased from our original five. This year we were up to 16. We actually went a week later this year than we usually do. And while the leaves were much more colorful, the temperatures were also much cooler - 42 degrees at lunchtime.

Roasting marshmallows was extra pleasant this year.

Our first stop is always at Groundhog Mountain. Michael likes to climb on the fences, and Matthew likes to just run around. Anywhere we go, Matthew always finds a stick. Lately, he's been pretending that his stick is a gun.

Such a boy. Then we head down the road (Parkway) to Mabry Mill.

Lots of mountain arts to watch today.
In addition to basket weaving there was black smithing, weaving on a loom, apple cider pressing and apple butter cooking, and corn husk doll making.
We always end up picnicking at Rocky Knob. One of the favorite parts of the trip for the boys at this stop is climbing all over the rocks while we picnic. Of course, I'm always sure that they are going to plunge to their deaths (it's a bit steeper than this picture implies), but so far, so good.
Cutie hubbers taking a chill. We will not pay attention to the fact that he is wearing socks with his birks. Oh my.
The infamous Granny Puckett cabin where our family always had to stop (despite the fact that the cabin is padlocked and nothing in this area ever changes) on the annual family trek. This little mountain midwife that lived here supposedly delivered around 1000 babies all over these mountains, but none of her own (something like 20) children survived beyond infancy. Amazing how the times have changed...makes me even more thankful for my two healthy boys.
For years we've driven past this church, but never stopped. Poor Alan. I had him stopping all over the place so that I could take pictures. I don't think this church is very old, but I love that it's made out of mountain stone.

I wish the light was better in this picture. Matthew and Michael had been begging for pumpkins (but not in a completely obnoxious way), so we stopped at this wonderful produce stand in Cana, VA. They both decided that they did not want the bigger variety. They chose two smaller pumpkins with interesting stems instead. Matthew was very proud.The apples - and there were so many different kinds - were so colorful.

And cheap - $0.79 per pound.
The produce at this stop was really amazing. It seems the yellow jackets and honeybees thought so, too (click on picture to enlarge...but watch that you don't get stung!).
And the most beautiful site we saw today (where we filled up Bullet):