BG Report: Blue Ridge Parkway 1/3: North Carolina

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I drove the entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway – all 469 miles of it – over a roughly four-day span. My drive, with my travel partner, was from south to north (North Carolina to Virginia). And blood sugars on this first part were not exactly perfect. But as always, they could have been worse, and I was grateful for and proud of the good ones.

We didn’t actually reach the Parkway until after 5 pm, having driven through north Georgia from Augusta all day. I’d had high blood sugars the night before and at breakfast, and had managed to overcorrect and be 57 at lunchtime at Watson Mill Bridge State Park.

My first reading actually taken on the Parkway, pulled over at one of the many scenic pullouts, was 90. This can only mean that my body is meant to be on the Parkway!

It got dark and we couldn’t see anything, so we made the snap decision to abandon the Parkway and drive ahead to our hotel in Asheville, NC. After a Waffle House dinner, and checking in to Comfort Inn, my BG was 135. Excellent.

The next morning I woke up at 5 am, low. The reading was 67, so I had a bit of glucose and fell back to sleep. At breakfast I was 174, a tad high but not bad. We had breakfast in the hotel, and since waffles and cheap hotel food are always chock full of more carbs than necessary, I took a lot of Humalog for it.

My instincts were correct. After driving back and continuing along the Blue Ridge Parkway, before lunch (a wonderful picnic at the visitor center) I was 94, another perfect reading.

We kept driving, and in November there weren’t many other cars. By the time darkness rolled around, my BG was excellent yet again: 127.

But, we’d run out of daylight again. For the second day in a row, we left the Parkway to drove ahead to the house I’d rented for the night in Sparta, NC. The only thing in town open seemed to be a Burger King. We don’t eat much fast food, especially not for dinner, and it made us a bit grouchy.

By 2 am, I wasn’t feeling quite right, and checked BG: high, at 231. I took some insulin, hoping that that would take care of it, and fell back asleep. Tomorrow would be another day of challenges and fog on the lovely Parkway, and I was up for it!

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