~ Braided Rug & Searching for Fall Foliage ~

Yesterday hubs and I went on a search for the colors of autumn. We do get the colors right here in central Virginia but not until the first part of November and I'm always anxious to see them so every year at this time we take a drive. I read online that the peak colors were occurring in the higher elevations here in Virginia so we decided to follow one of the fall foliage routes layed out by the Department of Forestry. It began way up in the north west area of the state which took us about 3 hours to get to, then we followed the route and while it was an area of our state that we hadn't yet traveled, and the route was indeed picturesque, there wasn't much color at all, pooey!
At least I got to see a bit of the Shenandoah River, I've always wanted to lay eyes on it for some reason, maybe because of the John Denver song, I don't know! but the route took us across the north fork and I had to get a picture so we stopped the car as soon as possible after crossing so I could walk back to snap a couple of pics. This is from one side of the road:
...and this is from the other side of the road:
...it's not like me at all to do anything risky or dangerous so for me to walk along a highway and even cross it on foot, you know I wanted pics of the river pretty bad! LOL There you see my little white SUV in the distance, I took that pic while walking back from the river crossing.
...this picture was taken right by where we stopped the car too, it's someone's driveway, must be nice!...just look at those manicured weeping willow trees that line their property!
So back on the road, we entered the town of Strasburg and shared a Subway sammich (we always say sammich! LOL) While eating our sammich, a really super LOUD siren started going off and it was an air raid siren like you hear in the war movies!! We were like, WHAT THE HECK IS THAT!!!! No one around us was panicking but we couldn't believe what we were hearing and had to ask! Turns out that is the town's fire alarm! GOOD GRIEF! So after that bit of excitement, we started on our journey back in the direction of home. Once we got back to familiar territory, we just couldn't pass the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway without taking a quick jaunt on it and I'm so glad we did because we saw more color there than on our adventure! Every year at this time we usually just drive up and down the Blue Ridge for our fall foliage but wanted to do something different this year...figures!...the Blue Ridge is only an hour and a half away from our house and that's where the color was! It's still not peak just yet so I'm still feeling color deprived, LOL, but I did get a few pretty pictures.



Originally, we were planning a drive to New England to see their fall foliage but several folks who live up there were saying that the color may not be at its best this year due to the long, hot, dry summer we had here on the east coast and I did not want to waste my only opportunity to get up there if the colors were not at their best! It's like pulling teeth to get hubs to go on drives with me because he does so much driving in his contracting work and has trouble sitting for long periods of time. So we are shelving our New England drive until next year and he knows that, even though he's off the hook this year, it's going to happen at some point in time! LOL

One other thing I wanted to share with you today is some pics of my new braided rug that came on Friday! It's made from wool braided yarn and I got it at Capel Rugs here in Richmond, their rugs are made in North Carolina. The colors in this are sage, brown, black, beige, rusty barn red, and creme.
Katie sure misses the carpet and is glad to have the new rug!
I think it adds a much needed softness to the room.

Well that about does it for this time...have a great week!