Much better driving today: much less traffic and road was less curvy and steep. I was also able to park at every pullover that I chose. A lot of motorcycles on the road, however, and most wanted to pass me. Did my best to let them through but hard to pull over with no shoulders.
The northern part of this section looked a lot like the section I drove yesterday--heavily forested, steep and curvy roads, and no homes.
However, after about 30 miles, the road leveled out a bit and there were more meadows and farms. Easier to drive closer to the 45 MPH speed limit. Apparently some of these farms were there before the road was built and others were on land that the federal government leased to farmers. And other were just off of the national park land and had access from roadways that followed the parkway.
This is a happy motorcyclist who has just passed me because there was a straight section of parkway.
This was an interesting farm and grist mill.
The farm had water from only two small creeks because it was so high on the ridge. As a solution, the owner built this sluice to carry water from one creek to the other to produce enough water power. It must have taken a lot of effort to build and also maintain it so it would not leak.
Picture of a blacksmith shop. outside and in.
The grist mill itself.
This is the two-story home from the site.
Notice the tiny window in the attic. Glass was very expensive, so few houses had more windows than absolutely necessary. Also notice that the logs are laid with about 2-3" spaces between them. This would have been too much for mud chinking, so they added split pieces of logs and then chinked around them to keep out the cold weather.
Sorghum is a king of syrup made from sugar cane. It served as the only source of sweetening available to most homes in the south.
When I was a small child, my family drove to Florida, and I remember my dad pulling over when he saw someone making sorghum. The long end of the horizontal pole was attached to a mule who walked in circles, crushing the cane so that juice dripped into a container. The juice was boiled down and used on pancakes or biscuits. My dad gave the man some money and brought us some sugar cane which we peeled and sucked on.
A quick note on campgrounds. There are quite a few campgrounds on the parkway, but all are very old and have no hookups. This is not a horrible problem, but sites are also very small since they were built for campers 50+ years ago. I have so far found that neither of the sites I have reserved in the two campsites fit my rig, so I have been relying on the advice of the registration rangers to suggest other possibilities. Campground roads are still narrow and tight, as are their biggest sites, but luckily there are very few campers so I have been able to find sites that are doable.
The National Park system has been starved of funding for such improvements for the past couple of decades, so I hope the stimulus bills has some cash in it so they can improve facilities across
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