This past summer my five granddaughters and I bike the 469-mile length of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The 5-year old rode on a tag-along attached to my bike while the older granddaughters rode their own bikes as we pedaled 50-miles a day for 10 days. The scenery turned out to be as beautiful as I imagined: breathtaking mountain vistas, sparkling clear streams, abundant wildlife, sweet-smelling flowers and very little automobile traffic. Once an hour we saw a deer eating leaves off a tree, a wild turkey scratching for seeds, a hawk circling the cliff edge, a red fox trotting by, a skunk eyeing us or a bobcat chasing a rabbit. On the tenth day we biked up to the highest point on the Parkway, 6053-foot altitude. The road ran downhill from there. The best part - spending time with my granddaughters.
