Butterfly Hatch on the Blue Ridge

The plan today is to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway north through North Carolina, and into Virginia, and get as far as practical before stopping for the night. This road is very cool, very uncrowded, and we wished we were in the MX-5.

Upstream we went, into the park alongside one of the prettiest rivers I've ever seen. there are butterflies everywhere: indigo blue, monarch, different colors of swallowtail, black and white. They must have just hatched, because literally, they're fluttering around everywhere. The road through the park is beautiful, with grassy verges and dappled trees on both sides. The mountains are doing their namesake thing: mist rising really makes the hills look smoky.




We went as far as the ridgetop overlook, took pictures, enjoyed the sunshine and distant vistas, then headed back down. We stopped at a bridge we'd seen on the way up, and took more photos. The way the sunlight bounced off the water was really cool.







My favorite is a wide-angle shot taken vertically, with the pattern of river tumbling over rocks repeated until it was out of sight.