Sparta, NC to Julian Price Park, NC

Day 5 - 84 miles through North Carolina

We go up early and headed over to BJ’s for breakfast. It was good and cheap. Today was an easy day of riding, just a small loop around Shady Valley and back on the Parkway to our camp site since we needed to get some laundry done and I wanted to tweek the routes for the rest of the trip, it seemed that even though the planned daily miles were low, because the roads were very twisty and we wanted to stop a lot, we were ending our riding too late in the day.



BJ's, next to our motel, make's a good and cheap breakfast





Rooms at the Alleghany Inn were nice, we also had a refrigerator and microwave



While we did laundry, I had to dry out my tank bag and contents, last night my platypus started leaking water in to my tank bag

84 miles, a very short day today

At 11:30AM we hit the road and arrived in Boone where we were going to stop for lunch before continuing the ride though Shady Valley, but after we finished eating we decided to skip the ride and just get to the camp site early and relax.

BRP in the distance

More mountains and scenic stops - ah, this is the life

Mike and Tiger posing

Lunch at the Chick-fil-a in Boone, NC, the shake was extra good

It was already 3PM when we finished eating, so we headed back to the parkway and arrived at the Julian Price Park half an hour later. There was no where to eat or get food neat the camp so once the tent was set up we rode in to Blowing Rock stopping for gas and grabbing some simple food at the fancy gas station/food market, which was loaded with wine and cheese. We did find some stuff to bring back with us for dinner tonight.

Posing in front of Price Lake on the way from food shopping

The lake just a few steps from our camp site

Taking a hike on the path to the bridge to watch the sunset

Are the fall colors already turning here?

The sun starting to hide behind the trees

We got back to the camp site just in time to take the gear off and walk to the bridge to watch the sun set over Price Lake. Then back to the camp site to build a fire and try to warm up our beans and weenies. It didn’t get that cold tonight, only low to mid 60’s.

Dinner