On our drive home to Arizona from Virginia we determined at first to take the back roads and enjoy the countryside, staying off the Interstate highways. So, after a very tiring and emotional time of packing up and saying our last goodbyes to our dear Bedford members and friends we made a very late start down the road on Friday, June 18, getting only to Rocky Mount, south of Roanoke before stopping for the night in a hotel. The next day, Saturday, June 19, we left Rocky Mount at about noontime and made our way west and south into western North Carolina, crossing up over the Blue Ridge and, after a good many twists and turns up and down narrow mountain and country roads we stopped for the night in Johnson City, on the extreme east border of Tennessee, getting a lovely, so comfortable room in a Courtyard by Marriott hotel. What a blessing for two very happy but still very tired people!

On our way across the Blue Ridge in western North Carolina we kept seeing sights like this: whole mountain sides covered in Christmas trees! Mile after mile of them! It was a first for us. We have seen tree farms before but nothing on this scale!