I mentioned in a recent #caturday post how I had taken LittleBit to live with my sister-in-law again, where she belongs. Plus, there was other business that required me to take trips to both Tennessee and North Carolina a few months ago, so there were three road trips altogether.
Most of my life, I have lived in the vicinity of the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern portion of North America. I was only away from them about 14 years, total, and have lived in various places in, or near, the mountains for 51 years. I'm currently at the foot of the mountains, and can drive to the top of the closest one in 15 minutes. For 24½ years, though, I was right in the middle of them, with mountains in all 360° around me! I'm definitely a 'mountain girl' at heart.
I think life is more interesting with mountains. It seems rather boring in flat landscapes with nothing around for miles but a few trees or buildings to break the monotony. I lived in central Florida for a few years. During that time, I remember driving on roads where one could see an oncoming car's headlights for a very long time — maybe five minutes — and you're both driving towards each other at 55 MPH (88.5 KPH) and wondering when-the-heck you're gonna pass each other. 😂 In the mountains, though, you know you will be passing distant cars in just a minute or two at most, even in wide-open stretches between the many curves and hills.
can click on any of the photos in this post to enlarge them and see more detail!
The mountains of the east coast of North America are replete with vegetation of all types. Thousands of species of trees, shrubs, and smaller plants cover the landscape in lush greenery. In spring and summer, wildflowers abound, many of them being herbs that have uses in medicine, cooking, dye-making, and other facets of life.
Several ago, I had reason to travel to California on business. I was especially surprised when I saw the Diablo Mountain Range just east of San Jose, California. They were brown, not green, and there were no trees at all, just yellowish grass dotted with an occasional scrubby bush. I learned years later that the Diablo mountains are shielded from moisture-laden ocean winds by other coastal mountains, so the Diablos are under drought conditions much of the year, hence the yellowish grass. The scrubby bushes that appeared sparsely here-and-there may have been chaparral.
I must admit that the scenery was fascinating, although shocking, as every little nook and hollow was easily visible on the sparsely-vegetated and "naked" mountains. My drives through those mountains during down-time from the business was quite enjoyable! But, my preference lies with the heavily-forested, green mountains of the east coast, having been accustomed to them all my life.
Some of the roads going over the mountains are quite steep in places. The following photo shows the view at Sam's Gap where Interstate Highway 26 crosses the state line between North Carolina and Tennessee. There's a sign there with an arrow indicating that all trucks must pull-off the road so they can see the warning signs about the long and curvy steep grades ahead of them and be prepared to exercise due caution.
Routes that are popular with trucking companies that operate large rigs sometimes have special pull-offs that can be used in emergency situations, especially if the brakes on the trucks fail. These pull-offs are often situated at the beginning of a sharp curve and feature an uphill grade with a thick layer of sand that will slow the truck to a stop. Someone I know who has worked most of his life as a big-rig driver said that those emergency pull-offs are extremely rough to use, but certainly come in handy at times. One of them can be seen in the following photo.
Another of those "runaway truck ramps" can be seen in the photo at left, below. Below right, one of the many lovely mountain vistas opens in the distance.
There was an hour of driving in incredibly heavy traffic near cities and towns which necessitated that I remain very alert and cautious. There was a long line of vehicles as far as the eye could see, both ahead of me and behind me, and in all lanes of the interstate highway. It was quite a relief that the traffic dropped to almost nothing when I arrived at this most scenic section of the trip shown in the photos in this post. That was the only way that it was safe for me to snap these photos while driving.
One day, I would like to try mounting my cellphone on the dashboard of the car so I can record a video of this gorgeous route. There's over 30 miles (48 km) of nothing but beautiful scenery on both sides of the road, with only an occasional house in sight in the distance on one side or the other. Most of the sights, though, are just trees, mountains, and the fascinating rises-and-dips in the landscape. It's breathtaking!
One of the most curious things is how these mountains look different on days with varying weather conditions. Clouds, fog, sunlight coming from different angles, as well as the change in seasons throughout the year presents a slightly different appearance each time one sees them. It's never quite the same look.
It's always interesting to see individual mountains standing on their own in the midst of all the others. I love that little "baby mountain" in the shot at below-right! Some people might think it is really no more than a "hill," but the other side drops quite a long way down to the valley floor beneath. So, it's definitely more than just a hill.
The photo on the left, below, is pretty amazing. This is one of the places that had to be cut through the mountain to make a path for the road. I say "cut," but much of the material was removed with dynamite, then with heavy equipment to haul the debris and clear the area for grading equipment.
I remember traveling on the small two-lane country road nearby, years ago while the interstate highway was being built. At that time, small two-lane roads were the only route into that particular part of Tennessee. There were signs along the way asking motorists to turn off all radio equipment in their vehicles because of the blasting. I don't think regular AM/FM receivers would be a problem, but Citizens' Band radios that can transmit signals definitely would be dangerous, so being overly precautious is good!
Thanks for coming along with me on this drive through the Appalachian Mountains! I love these mountains so much, they are in my blood!
😊
16-Feb-2021
Congratulations, your post has been added to Pinmapple! 🎉🥳🍍
Did you know you have your own profile map?
And every post has their own map too!
Want to have your post on the map too?
View or trade
BEER.Hey @thekittygirl, here is a little bit of
BEERfrom @pixresteemer for you. Enjoy it!Learn how to earn FREE BEER each day by staking your
BEER.Beautiful pics
If you like mountains then I think you’d like my country
Those roads look so much like our highways minus the clouds...
As someone who has grown up surrounded by mountains too - I have to agree. Flat landscapes really are so boring by comparison, lol.
I enjoyed this ride through the Appalachian Mountains with you! Quite detailed that I feel like I could be there. I love road trips and these pictures are just lovely. You took them while driving? The clouds also added to beauty of the scenery!
Thanks for taking us on a drive @thekittygirl, it's so interesting to see the natural landscape from other countries. Taiwan is also very mountainous, but the roads there are quite narrow and windy, often dangerous built in the cliff, and there's a famous one with 36 hairpin bends! Quite different from your neck of the woods
Oh, believe me, we have plenty of other roads that are narrow and windy, with some hairpin bends, too! This just happens to be one of the larger highways designed for rapid travel over long distances.
This post has received a 100.00% upvote from @fambalam! Join thealliance community to get whitelisted for delegation to this community service.
Amazing landscape. I would love to explore this part of the US one day. Thanks for showing us around through these great shots :)
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 39/78) Liquid rewards.
A video of the ride would be awesome! Get over that way every couple of months or so and think we're heading there again in about a month for Freya's birthday. Zoo and maybe Ripley's and some hiking 😎
I love the clouds!!! Don't you just look at the clouds! Hehehe.
Mountains are so interesting, and the trees... I sometimes catch myself imagining.
Hiya, @LivingUKTaiwan here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Top 3 in Daily Travel Digest #1117.
Your post has been manually curated by the @pinmapple team. If you like what we're doing, please drop by to check out all the rest of today's great posts and consider supporting other authors like yourself and us so we can keep the project going!
Become part of our travel community:
Thank you so much!!! 😃
This is a most excellent publication and was extremely pleasant to read @thekittygirl!
It reminds me of all the trips I drove from the bay area to Los Angeles and from the bay area to Reno. Beautiful mountain scenery for most of it.
The only drawback was a lot of my trips were done at night, and the scenery looks way different. A lot of lights made coming off the hills nice, and yes we have quite a few runaway ramps on all of the California grades.
I once watched a tractor trailer fly past me while coming off of Wheeler Ridge in southern California (The Grapevine) and he was doing about 120 mph. He had lost his brakes, but when I got into the clear and I was coming off the top but was where I could see miles and miles ahead I saw that tractor trailer driver did not use the runaway ramp, but held his own until the rear end blew up, then all I could see was a huge fireball going up about 40 or 50 feet in the air.
Was not pleasant thinking about that driver, I never found out about how the driver fared. I had hoped he managed to get out of the truck.
Congratulations @thekittygirl! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Your next target is to reach 16500 replies.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
Absolutly LOOVE the envirement in those pictures, I really hope to get to USA one Day and I would like to go there 😉
We have beautiful enviroment here, but I soo wish we had Mountains here to, it is just something magical about them.
Amazing pictures and the big walls looks really cool.
Thank you for sharing and have a wonderful week my sweet friend.
Much love 🤗🌹❤️
When I look at your pictures. I feel like I miss my country. I miss when I go to the mountain and ride to another city. Thank you for sharing this post with me. I really like your pictures.