Looking to get out on the open road this summer? How about one that cuts across the Appalachian Mountains and has provided drivers, motorcyclists, and cyclists with stunning views of mountains and rivers and waterfalls for 80 years?
The Blue Ridge Parkway was begun in 1935 as a Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal project, built to give jobs to the Depression-era unemployed. It also provided tourism options to all those new automobile drivers. When the last piece – the Linn Cove Viaduct – was added in 1983, the 469-mile ribbon of road was completed, with end points in Shenandoah National Park at the juncture with Skyline Drive in Virginia and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park along the North Carolina-Tennessee border.