AAPRCO Trip-Day 4-Part 1- Spencer to Asheville, NC-Tuesday September 25th

We left the North Carolina Transportation Museum and headed through the Blue Ridge Mountains on a steep and hairpin curve route.  There were lots of trees on either side and with the train being 1/2 mile long it was hard to see too many cars ahead of where we were on the curves.  There was one section where I looked down and could see the track below us that we had just been on - and also one point where I could see the first part of the train climbing ahead of us.  Since this was pretty slow, there were lots of opportunities to be on the platform and I took a few pictures from the vestibule.  I took a video of Rick on the platform - asked him what he thought.  He said, 'Honey, it doesn't get any better than this!"  Stephen Little, the Mayor of Marion had spent the night on board, sleeping on the bench seat which bumped Barry the steward into Kevin's room with Rob, our train guy, and Kevin to the top bunk in the Chef John's quarters.  We saw Andrews Geyser down below us that he talked about last night at the Bar-B-Que.  He got the locals in his town and other towns to come down to the crossings to greet the train as it came through with signs and cheers!!  As we were getting set up in Asheville we had a few rough bumps and our bouquets went flying and we had a wet chair and wet bench seat.  We finally pulled into Asheville and they split the train into two sections. Continued......