A silly shot (with stupid caption) and a tranquility-based, gentle shot from the NC Botanical Gardens, Monday afternoon shortly before 6 p.m. I loved the metalic/stone chess set.






The vacation moves too rapidly. Jim Croce, who died 30 years ago last month, had it right. About time and bottles and all that sort of thing. ...once you find them... Betcha have that song stuck in your head now. I, too, dislike it - to quote a quote quoted by TS Eliot upon a time - I think from the Wasteland, if memory serves.

Sunday morning (Sept 28) after a quick breakfast, we headed NW into Virginia, passing over both the Mayo and Dan Rivers in the process and clarifying for me the origin of a small North Carolina town a few miles South of the NC/VA State Line: Mayodan, NC.

Our journey began along highway 54; we met up with 87 and headed through Madison/Mayodan where we took 8 and eventually grabbed old US 52 N into Virginia. Along the way, we passed 2 of Virginia's 8 remaining covered bridges. This one, pictured, is the Jones Creek Bridge, built around 1921 in Patrick County. It's the youngest of the remaining covered bridges and served to connect small (mill?) houses with a church across a creek.


The sign reads END OF STATE MAINTENANCE. Save that sign, you could easily take your car through the bridge - if it would hold the tonnage.



Views from along the road:
We made it as far as Floyd, VA before heading South along the Blue Ridge Parkway toward the Mabry Mill. The Mill was an actual grist and lumber mill from the early 1900s. Even though the National Parks Service attempts to keep alive a somewhat false impression of the mill (it ran on a gas engine near the end of its commercial life and the pond that sits in front of it is a recent addition), it's a lovely spot for a destination.

(For more fact and myth about the Mill and the Parkway itself, see this article from the Roanoke Times. )

I decided Mabry Mill was as good as any for some sound gathering, so I donned by headphones, positioned the mic and recorded the ambience onto Minidisc. I'm standing next to a blacksmithy where some living history type was pounding away, flattening a piece of iron that he was shaping into some useful design. Amy snapped a few as I recorded the audio.

This Sunday as most Sundays through October, a local old-time band played songs from the mythologized Southern heritage. I'm not sure who these cats were - but they were local farmers/musicians from the area. I've uploaded a short 5 mins. Real Audio experience of our time at the mill. It begins with the band - includes a walk over to the smithy just behind them, and a short walk along the slue and stream that feeds the mill and man-made pond. Listen



About half way through the sound collage, you'll hear the buck dancing and clogging - several people from the 200 or so gathered took turns on the boards. Also, some gentleman just out of the frame of this picture played spoons about at least half of the tunes. The band loved the attention and the fiddle player had this wry smile in this eyes, punctuating the songs with a few corny jokes.

The music was unamplified, and yet it could be heard and felt throughout the park on this Sunday afternoon. Following, you'll see some other shots from the Mill and along the Parkway and other side trips. We got home very late Sunday evening... exhausted and happy. Oh, below you'll see the marker for Pilot Mtn., NC, followed by the view from that vista. You can almost make out the knob. (I didn't know the quarry factoid on this marker...surprise.)


Various Things: (touch the pic with your cursor for a short caption if your browser supports that sort of thing...)

One of the last things we did - and it's undocumented because we maxed out our cheap digital camera - was climb the Big Walker Lookout Tower. It's a 100-foot steel lookout constucted in the 1950s in what is now the Jefferson National Forest. It's in Wythe County, about 25 miles from the W. VA line. The tourist attraction - privately built and owned - is a little spooky. Until the 1980s, they operated a chairlift that went up a nearby pinnacle. It was destroyed by lightning. Fire gutted their previous gift shop and restaurant (the one you see if you go to the site mentioned just above) back in Feb. 2003. It wasn't with great confidence we started up the tower. The wind blew hard and the tower does sway in the breeze. You're headed up this tower already atop a cresting peak. Not for the weak hearted, I tell you. Right across the main highway from the Big Walker Lookout is a little known dirt road that takes you up along the ridge to a small unspoiled area where the National Forest Service has placed some discreet picnic tables. You can view the Seven Sisters peaks from there... Dazzling stuff. More about Big Walker.