Pull onto the Blue Ridge Parkway at dawn, and the first thing you notice is the hush. No billboards, no truck traffic—just a ribbon of two‑lane asphalt winding through a sea of forested peaks, the sunrise bleeding pink across endless waves of blue mountains. For 469 miles, from Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park to North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains, the Parkway feels less like a road and more like a slow‑motion pilgrimage. It is a journey where every milepost is a portal to geologic drama, Appalachian culture, and the ever‑changing spectacle of the seasons. A Depression‑Era Dream in Concrete and Curves Conceived in the 1930s as a New Deal project to put…