Blue Ridge Parkway: Mabry Mill

The Great Grunwald's Family Summer Road Trip of 2015 has officially begun. We packed up the car this morning and hit the road headed north. Our eventual destination would be my parent's house in Pennsylvania, but today we were headed to the Blue Ridge Parkway. After a lunch in Bristol, we drove north on I-81, then south for a short distance on I-77. Then we were on the parkway. It was a short drive to the Mabry Mill.

Mabry Mill is one of the most iconic and photographed locations on the Blue Ridge Parkway. None of us had been here before and we were excited to get out, stretch our legs, and explore. We walked a path

lined with rhododendron

to an overlook of the mill

and then continued on passing the millrace,

which transports water to the waterwheel. We went inside the mill to check things out, but it was not grinding anything today. There were some pretty flowers in bloom outside the mill

and an exhibit that featured some old millstones.

We continued on past an old cabin

and a "hidden" moonshine still out in the woods.

We then made our way back to the car for the pleasant drive through scenery that wasn't spectacular, but that I would describe as pastoral or bucolic. We finally arrived at the Peaks of Otter Campground just as rain was threatening. We set up camp quickly, waited out a quick rain, and then cooked and ate dinner in our campsite in the virtually empty campground.