The Linn Cove Viaduct, a 1243-ft. concrete segmental bridge on the Blue Ridge Parkway, near Linville, North Carolina, snakes around the slopes of Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. Completed in 1987 at a cost of $10 million, the parkway -- a scenic road that runs for 469 miles through 29 Virginia and North Carolina counties, linking Shenandoah National Park in the former state to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in far-western North Carolina -- was the last section of the Blue Ridge Parkway to be finished. Photo by Carol Highsmith.