The Grandfather Mountain Mile-High Swinging Bridge
My dad and I walked across the Grandfather Mountain bridge, which he said he wasn’t going across. No way. I’m not going. “There’s nothing to worry about,” I told him. I mean it’s just the highest foot bridge in America so what could go wrong. When he was a kid, his dad took him to…
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Seeing Through the Fog
It was foggy almost that whole Saturday. I left the mountain in the morning driving with flashers and lights at a creeping pace on my way to Hickory. On the way home the fog was still thick, which is what I was hoping for. Intentionally I turned north onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. I could…
It’s More Like Love Than You Want to Admit
For as far back as I can remember I’ve dreamed about mountains and here’s the, perhaps, odd admission–thinking about the mountains felt a little like falling in love. I’d look at the ridgelines of hills and imagine myself in silhouette up there. I could feel the texture and temperature of a rock without touching it…
A Martyrdom of Leaves
I’m sure there’s at least been a moment or two in your life when the viewing of fall foliage took on a bit of a macabre hue in your mind’s eye. In some sense when you come to Boone to view the leaves in fall you know it’s the viewing of the beauty of the…
Lucky Strikes in Budapest
Recalling that night in Budapest when we walked back to our hotels feeling like men in a foreign city. I was never addicted either. Just a few months one summer and my entire senior year. We smoked Lucky Strikes along the Danube during our few cold spring days in Budapest. Smoke trailing behind us in…
Joey Henson: A Brief Introduction
When Joey finally–initially reluctantly–decided to help me with this series of articles, we talked a couple of times on the phone. Then we finally met in person at Espresso News in downtown Boone, which is where so many pivotal things in his life have taken place over the last several decades. It’s where he and…
Heavenly Mountain
We took a quick field trip to Heavenly Mountain in Boone, North Carolina. I have to admit something and that is that I had never been in a meditative labyrinth until I drove to Heavenly Mountain at the recommendation of my friend Tom. Heavenly Mountain is just outside of Boone, and it’s a transcendental meditation…
Peppercorn Moth
Do you ever have one of those evenings when a moth lands on your shirt and your wife surprises you by calling it a “peppercorn moth.” She who never lets on that she knows the species of anything, let alone moths. “Let me get it,” but you walk out of the house with it on…
Roan Mountain “Camping”
In which the author and his daughter have a half-adventure on Round Bald. On the way home from Christmas I proposed a camping trip at Roan Mountain and my middle child was the only one who hasn’t experienced camping with me as something to be avoided. Bless her heart. She, like me, never remembers it…
The September of Our Discontent
My dad who lives in Atlanta called and said he was going to watch App State football. “They’re playing with no one in the stands,” he said. My mom said she was going to spend that Saturday cleaning out her closet. “It’s the strangest thing,” my dad said. “No one there in the stands.” One…
The Russians Have My Pen
My car stopped working at Elk Knob State Park just as the sun was setting and just as the Russians were finishing their hike so I asked if it was possible if I could get a jump. The man said “Yes. Of course.” and that’s when I think I first realized they weren’t necessarily from…
She took the Highland Games very seriously
My friend had been to the Highland Games over near Grandfather Mountain and when she returned she had her hair braided like people from Middle Earth. She had a recurve bow, a custom leather quiver, and a bunch of arrows—some of which were handmade with real feathers for the fletching. (more…)
KOA Campground
It was already raining as we ate pizza downtown at Capone’s, my 5-year-old son and I, and at the campground I realized in the downpour that my tent didn’t have stakes with it. We slept on the porch of a vacated cabin. We listened to the rain and played card games like war and rummy…
Fire Eating Cattle, Grayson Highlands, Virginia
And as we tried to sleep in Grayson Highlands on the Appalachian Trail, it became very clear that we weren’t alone. Something heavy breathing and heavy-bodied and a bit clumsy traipsed by the tent huffing like bulls in an Ernest Hemingway story. Then it sounded like they were eating something nearby and then snorting loudly.…
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The Magic Found Everywhere
“Everywhere we turn it’s just magic.” The sheep were coming down off the hill and then there were these large white dogs barking them into line. The sheep were talking back and the white dogs were barking as they all descended that hillside so I photographed them closer and closer and the dogs started…
Love in the Time of COVID
The very first time I heard Drew Holcombe’s “End of the World” song, the windows were down on my silver soccer mom Subaru and my daughter’s hair was caught in the breeze as she looked out over the western North Carolina mountains from one of those epic breaks in the trees along the Blue Ridge…
High Country Breeze
There was this windswept field the other day as I was coming into Boone from Winston Salem. I parked alongside 421 and walked up the hill a bit to capture. I heard someone yell from a truck “Get back in your car!” because people just love shouting from trucks.There’s just something about this little section…