Well, our spring trip turned into a fall trip when some family obligations came up. However we had a great 3 week trip. When in the Asheville area we stayed 5 nights at the Lake Powhatan US Forest Service campground at the southwest side of the city (great campground). On the way there we went through Great Smoky Mountain National Park through Gatlinburg. We went back to the GSMNP one day (a bit of a drive but a beautiful one including about 30 miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway). A pleasant surprise was a visit one day to the Blue Ridge Parkway Visitor Center southeast of Asheville. It's a beautiful facility with videos and artifacts on the development of the Parkway. As others had commented, the Asheville area is beautiful. Being there the last week of September, the foliage was about a third of the way turned and about half way at higher elevations.
We traveled via interstate to the DC area and camped at Bull Run Regional Park for 9 days. This park was beautiful and had a very well run campground operated by NOVA with lots of kids activities during the summer including a small water park. It was only about 15 miles from the Vienna Metro Station in Fairfax and the trip to the station took 25 to 45 minutes depending on the hour with all the crazy DC traffic. We were also close to the NRA Headquarters along with National Firearms Museum (highly recommended for all the gun nuts), Bull Run Manassas National Battlefield Park, and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport. We took in most of the Smithsonian Museums, National Monuments/Memorials, Arlington National Cemetery, Old Town Arlington, and toured the Capitol including both chambers while Congress was in session plus a small group coffee reception with Senator Ted Cruz. We only drove into DC on the weekend when we knew we could find parking. Otherwise, we used the Metro, which was very navigable.
On the way home we visited the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky just southwest of Cincinnati. This Museum is fabulous and we'd highly recommend visiting it one day followed/preceded the next day with the Ark Encounter (life size replica of the Biblical Noah's Ark). We had visited the Ark in 2016 and for the sake of time, we didn't go this year. As an aside, we had our first experience staying overnight at the Cabela's in Cincinnati. We arrived late and left early the next morning and really appreciated having that option.
It was a great trip with a total of 20 days! With the miles covered, I wouldn't want to do it in fewer days. I apologize for not writing this sooner but got busy, etc.!
