Weekend spent with daughters

It's been a great weekend - spent with daughters Nikki and Heather!  Heather came up from the Raleigh area on Friday and Nikki, my Roanoke native, has been here most of the weekend with us.  It has been just so great, just hanging out and having fun.  Wonderful fun - they took me off yesterday for a girls day of shopping and pizza.
Today Luke, Heather, and I spent most of the day touring the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The Blue Ridge always lives up to it's name.

We toured from a Roanoke entrance to Mabry Mill.  Mabry Mill is a beautiful, old, working mill located about 70 miles from our parkway entrance.  http://www.virtualblueridge.com/parkway_tour/parks/176_2/index.asp

During the warm months, the park is full of folks working the mill, the gunsmith, etc, in addition to live bluegrass music.  We assumed that that the park would be open - always has been - but apparently, due to financial cutbacks, nothing on the parkway was open today.  No open campgrounds or picnic areas, that I can understand.  But NO BATHROOMS!!!  For miles!!!! There are viturally no business along the parkway, so there was no help there. 
Fortunately for us, the Chateau Morrisette is located just off of the parkway, a few miles from the Mill.  http://www.chateaumorrisette.com/
The winery is a nice place to visit, tours are given, and there are wine tastings.  We declined to do the tastings because the girls and I did that yesterday in a wonderful little wine shop in Roanoke and it cost us all way too much money!

It's definitely spring in the mountains of the Blue Ridge - the trees are new green.

Flowers are blooming.

Recent rains have the waters overflowing.

There are old farms dotting the parkway, lush green and full of animals.

Heather, too, is a photographer.  She does rodeo photos and gets published!  Her cover photo on a local NC magazine ---

I'm still counting days until, hopefully, the cast will come off...9 days...