Travel/Places/Outdoor
Travelers along the Blue Ridge Parkway pass old cabins without giving them much thought. The cabins stand close to the road with their porches weathered and their roofs settling a little. Most folks see them as scenery. Look long enough, though, and the details begin to talk. The chimney talks first. It is the clearest…
I love driving the Blue Ridge Parkway. Early on an autumn morning there’s a mist in the air and sunlight sparkles off the freshly mowed hayfields where round bales wait in the dew. Visitors congregate at the overlooks. They take in the horizon, nod at the quiet, then turn their cameras toward those giant rolls…
From the pull-off near Rocky Knob, Rock Castle Gorge lies open below the Blue Ridge Parkway. Ridges step down into the valley where families once farmed and built their homes. Most visitors see only the view, not the community that once filled the hollow. When the Blue Ridge Parkway arrived in the 1930s, it changed…
The View That Cost Everything Drive the Blue Ridge Parkway on a quiet weekday morning, and it’s easy to believe it has always been this way: peaceful and polished. Each curve feels natural, as if the road simply followed the shape the mountains already offered. Beauty like this sometimes comes at a cost. Beneath the…
Mount Airy NC: A Town That Feels Like Mayberry The bronze statue outside the Andy Griffith Playhouse catches the last light of day. Sheriff Andy Taylor holds Opie’s hand, fishing poles slung over their shoulders, just as they did in the opening credits of The Andy Griffith Show. You half expect to hear that familiar…
The stone arch cuts a clean curve into the mountain, framing the tunnel. At the entrance to the Blue Ridge Tunnel, faint drips and echoes are heard. The wind carries the smell of damp rock. Step forward, and the daylight behind you starts to shrink, the cool darkness pulling you in. Cutting Through the Mountain…
In Meadows of Dan, Virginia, the Blue Ridge Parkway passes a weathered frame building that has stood since 1892. Travelers know it as the Mayberry Trading Post. The name catches the eye because it recalls Andy Griffith’s television Mayberry, but this place is real. Its story is one of change met with perseverance, a reminder…
A Valley with a Funny Name While America was toasting its new transcontinental railroad in Utah on May 10, 1869, Roanoke, VA, was just a mountain crossroads called Big Lick. Named for the large natural salt deposit, this lick attracted wildlife in droves: buffalo, deer, and elk, which came to lick the mineral-rich soil. The…
It’s a quiet morning in Fries, Virginia, and the New River is doing what it’s always done—slipping past the banks with ageless calm. The cotton mill that gave the town its name and purpose is long gone, but you’d swear you can still hear the echoes. Not of the looms—they stopped decades ago—but of something…
We all say the same thing the first time we see the Blue Ridge Parkway: “The view is incredible.” The Blue Ridge Parkway, with its winding curves and postcard overlooks, offers some of the most stunning scenery in the eastern U.S. It’s the kind of road that makes you slow down, roll down the windows,…