A great time was had by all this past weekend. The crew wound up being myself, Marrett (Chris), Grumpybadger (Steve), FW500a (Karl and Shara), TLG (Lee) and various friends of Lee and Chris with trailers, motos, Sprinters, you name it. The location was wonderful and I hope this meet grows from here.
I got in Friday about 5 after a long 7 hours or so from home, about 4 hours of interstate and about 3 of the Blue Ridge from Roanoke up to Devil's Backbone, just down the hill from the Parkway. Spring is a beautiful time to do the Parkway and it was dead quiet on a Friday. I literally saw about 10 cars. Campgrounds, visitor's centers and ranger's stations are all pretty much deserted even at the end of April. I can't for the life of me figure out why the campgrounds would still be closed.
I shook a few hands on Friday and checked out some rather nice SMB iron and got to know people.
A good shot of the meadow we had to ourselves with Karl (FW500a's) rig in the distance.
The grounds are pretty big at DB. It was only a short walk from our group site to the brewery/restaurant and common area and it was still pretty quiet early Friday evening.
The crowd picked up quickly and some live music was playing while folks wound down from a week of whatever. Mellow scene and great weather.
We decided to check out the restaurant and sit inside though there are several nice places to have a bite or a drink, including an outdoor bar pictured above and a walk-up counter for lighter bites.
As soon as we walked in and headed for the bar we were all pushed to the side while the staff helped a patron who had hit the floor. Later I learned he must've had a couple pints of their barleywine. Damn. That stuff doesn't mess around. We got a table and proceeded to get to know eachother only to forget most everything including the way back a couple hours later. Here's the group of us who showed up Friday.
Sorry for the dark pics.
To be continued....