Smoky Mountain Living April 2013

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING

WILDFLOWER PHOTOGRAPHY | SPOONBREAD | HIKING WITH HOUNDS APRIL/MAY 2013

Celebrating Southern Appalachians THE

TRAILS FOR EVERY TRAVELER • CHEROKEE MARKER TREES • TWO WHEELS ON THE PARKWAY • MEMORIES OF THE VIRGINIA CREEPER

FROM

Rail to Trail ON THE Virginia Creeper

Picture This:

APRIL/MAY 2013 • VOL. 13 • NO. 2

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POSTCARDS’ ROLE IN ATTRACTING EARLY TOURISTS

Mapping Cherokee Trail Trees The Blue Ridge Parkway on Two Wheels

we lco m e :

FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR

One can’t much help where she is born.

It’s a complicated arrangement generally controlled by a nine-month time frame and a mother’s geographical choices of where to live.

I was born in Raleigh, N.C. My mother, a North Carolina native from Alexander County, moved to Raleigh to attend N.C. State and stayed in town after graduating. My father, raised on the south side of Chicago, moved to Raleigh after law school. They met at a party, eventually were married, and I came along a few years thereafter.

Mom says that Dad had to go out to walk the dogs on Halloween and, having seen trick-ortreaters, declared he wanted one of his own. I arrived in July.

Four years later, our family moved to Western North Carolina. With our Polish last name, we Sarah E. Kucharski stuck out a bit among the Bullocks, Bumgarners, Cagles, Owens, and Queens.

All too often we were asked the accusatory question, “You ain’t from around here, are you?”

Over the years, where one was “from” grew more complex in meaning. It wasn’t enough to have been delivered in the local hospital. One’s parents needed to have been born there, and ideally, one’s grandparents too. Without this lineage, one remained an outsider, and I, with few memories of Raleigh and no extended family in Jackson County, didn’t seem to be from anywhere at all.

Being excluded, I excluded myself. Whenever asked where I was from, I replied, “I live in Jackson County, but I was born in Raleigh.” It was a disclaimer. A quantifier.

If the locals didn’t think I was one of them, then I didn’t think I was one of them either.

It wasn’t until time to go away to college that I realized that I was going to miss the place. I knew the back roads. I’d seen the change from a town with two stoplights to a town with a

Super Wal-Mart. The first time I came home from Chapel Hill, I was in awe of the mountains, which I imagined as giant sleeping dinosaurs.

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Absence was what finally determined where home was for me, where I was “from.” I no longer hesitated to answer questions as to my origin with the fact that I was from the mountains. The response confused most and generally required an explanation including, “Well I was born in Raleigh, but I grew up in Jackson County.”

Over the course of my 32 years, I’ve spent all but nine of them in the mountains of Western North Carolina. I married a Bumgardner (but with that “d” in there, he’s from Georgia).

I know what the sky looks like when it’s going to snow and how to ride a horse. I’ve drank moonshine on more than one occasion and welcome a plate of pinto beans, collard greens, and cornbread. I know my trees and flowers, get annoyed with big city traffic, and own a hound dog. It may have taken a journey to get here, but I’m from here.

I know what the sky looks like

when it’s going to snow and how to ride a horse. I’ve drank moonshine on more than one occasion and welcome a plate of pinto beans, collard greens, and cornbread. I know my trees and flowers, get annoyed with big city traffic, and own a hound dog. It may have taken a journey to get here, but I’m from here.

This edition of Smoky Mountain Living is focused on the journeys we take and the ways to get from here to there, wherever that may be. It’s about what we leave behind and what we discover along the way to where we’re going. I hope you enjoy the trip and that you too come to find yourself here.

— Sarah E. Kucharski, managing editor

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

About our writers Anna Oakes is VOL. 13 • NUMBER 2 Publisher/Editor . . . . . . . . . . . Scott McLeod editor@smliv.com General Manager . . . . . . . . . Greg Boothroyd ads@smliv.com Advertising Sales Manager . . Hylah Smalley hylah@smliv.com Managing Editor . . . . . . . Sarah E. Kucharski sarah@smliv.com Art Director . . . . . . . . . . . Travis Bumgardner travis@smliv.com Graphics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Micah McClure Finance & Admin. . . . . . . Amanda Singletary Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Greg Boothroyd, Amanda Bradley, Whitney Burton Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scott Collier Editorial Assistants . . . . . . . . . . Colby Dunn, Glenda Kucharski

a reporter for the Watauga Democrat in Boone, N.C. Raised at the base of the Blue Ridge Escarpment in Caldwell County, Oakes is proud to be a mountain girl and a graduate of Appalachian State University. She tolerates the harsh and downright offensive mountain winters in exchange for the heavenly summers of the High Country, where you’ll find her on the river, dancing to an old-time string band, or attempting a vegetable garden.

Paul Clark is a resident of Weaverville, N.C., and has worked as a journalist for more than three decades.

He is currently studying photography

Contributing Writers . . . . . . . . . . Paul Clark, Lewis Garnett, Joe Hooten, Marla Hardee Milling, Anna Oakes, Casey Quinlan, Angela Raimondo Rosebrough, Phillip Spade, Rebecca Tolley-Stokes Contributing Photographers . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Jon D. Bowman, Victor Ellison, 6Ashley T. Evans, Diana Gates, Jo Harris, Margaret Hester, Bob Joralemon, Margie Metz, Constance Miller, Anna Oakes, Barbara Sammons, Sherry Shook, Beverly Slone, Marti Smith Contributing Illustrator . . Mandy Newham Smoky Mountain Living is published bi-monthly

by SM Living LLC. Smoky Mountain Living has made every effort to insure listings and information are accurate and assumes no liability for errors or omissions.

For advertising information, contact Hylah Smalley at 828.452.2251 or hylah@smliv.com.

For editorial inquiries, contact Sarah Kucharski at sarah@smliv.com.

Smoky Mountain Living assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. Queries should be sent to Sarah E. Kucharski at sarah@smliv.com. ©2013. All rights reserved. No portion of this magazine may be reprinted without the express, written consent of the publisher.

Smoky Mountain Living is published bi-monthly (Dec/Jan, Feb/Mar, Apr/May, Jun/Jul, Aug/Sep, Oct/Nov) by SM Living, LLC, 34 Church Street, Waynesville, NC 28786. Application to Mail at Periodical Postage Prices is pending at Waynesville NC and at additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: please send address changes to Smoky Mountain Living, PO Box 629, Waynesville, NC 28786.

and videography.

Angela Raimondo Rosebrough is associate editor of High Country Magazine and a freelance writer.

She loves hiking the Blue Ridge Parkway and has fun experimenting with cooking, entertaining friends and traveling whenever she can. She lives with her son in Asheville, N.C.

Lewis Garnett’s maternal lineage traces to medieval France, but he doesn’t wear funny clothes or eat snails. Rather, in the mountains of Southwestern Virginia, he was weaned on pinto beans, cornbread, molasses, garden peas, and a small town chock full of colorful personalities. After a nearschizophrenic career path of social work, technical writing and long-haul trucking, Lewis now writes about this plethora of influences and treats audiences to his ecclectic storytelling. He currently resides in Pfafftown NC (only locals can prounounce it or find the post office) and

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loves getting mail — especially job offers.

Several of his stories have been featured on National Public Radio.

Mandy Newham is a lefty vegetarian artist and illustrator living right outside of Philly. Newham is the illustrator of three children’s books: Razzmatazz!, “Bullet” Joe: A Kansas City Monarch, and The Little Brown Hen (forthcoming). She earned her bachelor of fine arts at Florida State University and her master of fine arts in drawing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Casey Quinlan, the Mighty Mouth of Mighty Casey Media and author of Cancer for Christmas: Making the Most of a Daunting Gift, is a writer and speaker with a passion for humor. She uses that humor to help drive change in challenging areas like healthcare and technology. After over two decades working in network TV news, where she covered all kinds of stories and once talked her way out of police custody in Saudi Arabia, she decided to use her powers only for good. Casey now works as a content strategist for companies looking to tell a better story online and in person.

Joe Hooten

was born in Macon, Ga., but spent his formative years surfing the beaches near his home in Mt. Pleasant, S.C. He eventually found his way to Western North Carolina. Hooten taught public middle and high school history in Hendersonville, Cary and then Raleigh for ten years before moving back to Asheville with his wife and three young kids in 2008. Hooten writes about his all-time favorite hobby—music—for The Smoky Mountain News and Smoky Mountain Living. A second-rate guitarist, he can be found most evenings pickin’ some tunes on the back porch while enjoying the beauty of the Appalachian Mountains.

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Contents

FEATU RE STO RIES

CROOKED SENTINELS Marker trees are believed to have guided ancient Indian travelers throughout the southeast. Now, researchers are working to document the location and nature of these unusual relics before they are all gone.

BY PAUL CLARK

PAGE

TRAIL MIX In the mood for a particular travel theme?

There’s a trail for that!

BY MARLA HARDEE MILLING

PAGE

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THE VIRGINIA CREEPER The Virginia-Carolina Railroad’s transformative nature.

BY ANNA OAKES

PAGE

40

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POSTCARD PERFECT

STOPPING TIME

Through the years, tourist’s dispatches have spread the gospel of the Smokies.

Winding the throttle along one of the nation’s premier byways.

BY ANGELA RAIMONDO ROSEBROUGH

PAGE

BY PHILLIP SPADE

PAGE

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Contents MOUNTAIN VOICES

DEPA RTME N TS

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Nearing the end of her journey, a woman reflects.

MOUNTAIN MUSIC

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Temporary Tarheel returns to his Mississippi roots.

OUT & ABOUT

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Tennessee project teaches a supercomputer to create art.

OUTDOORS

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ride the route of the Virginia Creeper.

MOUNTAIN LETTERS

Crew members pose for a photo.

When the Abingdon Branch retired its last steam engine in the 1950s, it was one of the last remaining steam engines in service in the country.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JIM LEWIS

Resources

ARTS

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Stony Knob CafĂŠ evolves with the times.

MOUNTAIN VIEWS

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When life itself is the journey, every day is a new destination.

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Knoxville museum presents a collection of African-American art.

CUISINE

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Putting down roots in Coal Country.

ON THE COVER

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Eastern Tennessee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Waynesville, N.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Abingdon, Va. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Select Lodging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

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~In 1932~ Miss America wore a woolen swimsuit, The future King George VI was married, A new Chevy Sportster cost $510, The Yankees played their 1st game in the NEW Yankee Stadium, and

The Fryemont Inn welcomed her ďŹ rst guests.

Come celebrate our 90th Anniversary

of Good Times & Great Fun! From only $70 Per Person Including a full country breakfast & a 3 course dinner with your choice of over 15 entrees!

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places 245 Fryemont Street, Bryson City North Carolina www.fryemontinn.com 800-845-4879 75-68

Barbara Sammons

Where have you been? Where are you going?

Smoky Mountain Living’s readers take us on a journey through the region.

Diana Gates

Beverly Slone

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

— Ernest Hemingway

“Not I, nor anyone else can

travel that road for you.

You must travel it by yourself.

It is not far. It is within reach.

Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.

Perhaps it is everywhere—on water and land.”

—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Sherry Shook

Victor Ellison

Sherry Shook

Margie Metz

“We don’t receive wisdom;

we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”

—Marcel Proust

Marti Smith Jo Harris

Bob Joralemon

Constance Miller

“A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.

And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”

—John Steinbeck

Victor Ellison

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MOUNTAIN VOICES

Towards the twilight, with heels dug in

BY LEWIS GARNETT

Mary Lou on the farmhouse porch with “Kitty Tom,” c1920. DONATED PHOTO

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woman who says I’m her mother tells me I’m 94 years old.

I don’t believe it. Sometimes she takes me out to eat, which is really nice, but she brings me back to this place. She says it’s my home now. I don’t believe that, either.

And a man tried to stop me from putting turkey in my water glass like I’m supposed to. I try to follow rules, even when they’re silly.

He, too, says I’m his mother.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and see a withered old lady.

Whoever she is, I can tell she won’t go down without a fight.

People tell me I’m in this place because my memory is bad. But I can remember things just fine.

I remember my father. Friends called him “Lon.” His right hand had only a thumb because he got hurt. But he could sure pop me on the head with it if I wasn’t acting right. I remember my mother, Clella. She gathered eggs, cooked meals and worked on the farm.

I loved to hear her laugh. It was more like a giggle.

I wonder why they haven’t come to see me.

I can remember living with Aunt Rissie in Dallas and going to school. I got a job typing at Sears and Roebuck. I never told any-

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one, but on the farm we used their catalog in our outhouse. The saying was, “We’ll get through the harness section by spring.”

And I remember the war. You had to buy stamps to get gasoline.

But I rode the bus.

There were dances at a big hotel. They gave me a nametag. I talked with the men from the war and danced some. There was this one man with a big voice. He laughed a lot, making me laugh, too.

And he didn’t try to dance too close. He was wearing a sailor suit.

He used to come by Aunt Rissie’s to pick me up. We would go fun places with his friends who also wore sailor suits. He had to move back to Virginia, where he was from. But he wrote to me all the time.

I rode a train to marry him. Everyone was really nice to me.

I remember all of this.

We lived in a place called Yorktown, I’m sure of that. But then he had to get on a ship and leave. I went back to live with Mama and Daddy. He sent me letters and sometimes cards with pictures on them. He said it was really hot where he was, but he was getting used to it.

He finally came back, right to the farm. We took a train together to Virginia and lived in a town called Marion. He wasn’t born there, but worked there before the war. It was small. At first we lived downtown and I could walk to the grocery. This was the first time I ever saw snow. Marion was in the mountains. The winters were cold, but I got used to them.

Then we moved to a small house and had lots of neighbors. Our children had other kids to play with.

Oh, for a minute I forgot about my children. A girl and a boy, I think.

Yes, the girl liked horses and the boy liked baseball.

Bob, that was my husband’s name, the man with the big voice.

Studio portrait He worked at a bank and had lots taken in 1940. of friends.

He hasn’t come to see me, either.

This place must be a long ways off.

We bought my favorite house from Bob’s friend Ralph. He used to eat Christmas dinner with us a lot. He wasn’t married. He grew up — refrigerator magnet in that house, but lived downtown from Mom’s house at the hotel, I think.

The house was built a long time ago. Bob said it was nearly as old as me. Anyway, most of the pretty furniture was still in it. Bob and I worked and worked. There were cracks in the ceiling, windows that leaked and everything was dirty.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

“Old age is not for sissies.”

But when I cleaned the floors, they were made of beautiful oak. And when I took the varnish off the wood around the doors, it was oak, too.

We left them just that way.

The house became beautiful. The ceilings were high. The windows were big and the sunshine made me feel good. The stairs up to the bedrooms were wide and pretty. They were made of maple.

After our daughter got married—I’m remembering even more now—our dog wouldn’t let her husband go up the steps. Bob laughed that big laugh of his and Pete—that was her husband’s name—got really embarrassed.

Bob had so many friends. They would just show up and knock on our back door. If we didn’t hear, they would come on in. That was fine with us. We were glad to see them. I always kept snacks and food that was easy to cook.

I had friends, too. Just not as many as Bob. My favorite thing was sewing with my best friends. We met at each other’s houses and called ourselves “Snitch and Stitch.” I was a pink lady at the hospital, too. I answered phones and worked in the gift shop.

Our new home also had a barn. And a good pasture. Our daughter Susan—see, I can remember names—kept a horse there. She and

Hat Day, 2011: Residents had fun wearing different hats, acting silly and having pictures taken. Mom just sat and watched. DONATED PHOTO

Bob would go to horse shows.

And Bob had two or three ponies. He would go to bed early, then get up at five thirty to go to the barn. He built an extra stable and a place where trucks would dump sawdust. Bob loved being at the barn. Sometimes I worried that he’d

get hurt climbing up and down the ladder to the hayloft, but he never did.

Bob may have died. I’m not sure about that.

He was older than me.

I cried when I had to leave the big house. But it was more than I could keep up. I guess I was alone then. I think I lived in a small house for a while. I remember Henry living across the street and Dotty living next door. So I guess I did.

That man who says I’m his mother said he and Susan would make sure I was safe. I had always been able to get along. But I do remember feeling lonely. And I remember some of my friends getting sick. We would talk on the phone at night to be sure everyone was all right.

Some of them died.

I guess my kids decided I need to live here.

I don’t like it. The door is locked. I kick it, but it won’t open.

They gave me a walker. I don’t need it, but I use it.

And people say I don’t talk anymore. I talk all the time, but nobody listens. I’ll look right at someone and say words I hear just fine. But they say, “Hi, Mary Lou” and walk right on by.

Who cares? I’m not supposed to be here anyway.

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bi-monthly magazine that covers the southern Appalachian mountains and celebrates the area’s environmental riches, its people, culture, music, art, crafts and special places. Each issue relies on regional writers and photographers to bring the Appalachians to life.

literature for

mountain life

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MOUNTAIN MUSIC

Mississippi calls a troubadour home

BY JOE HOOTEN

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s patrons of the arts, we live vicariously through the artists’ painting, the authors’ prose, the musicians’ song; we consume their creations and ultimately align ourselves—for good or for bad—with the journey upon which these individuals have embarked.

For musicians in particular, the road can go on forever, and the road is not necessarily all fame and riches. It can be an unglamorous lifestyle filled with trivial to monolithic, highly exaggerated moments that find their way into lyrics and song, all for our enjoyment.

A road-worn musician like Jimbo Mathus is filled with endless stories of his own exceptional experiences and countless stories of encounters with a wide range of folks, naturally influencing and infusing themselves into his songwriting. Mathus’ journey over the last few years, albeit a rough one, has yielded the most rewarding result. On his latest offering, “White Buffalo,” Mathus pens some of the most reflective and enjoyable music he’s made in his entire career. While the stories are all true and the music remains honest, Mathus has created an album that echoes his Southern heritage and the hardworking ethos he was raised by.

A musician since an early age, Mathus started playing with the family band in the kind of front-porch gatherings that would bring out the neighbors and friends on a sweltering summer weekend night in the deep South. Having learned hundreds of songs before he could drive a car, he eventually left Mississippi with an abun-

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dance of hill-country blues, folk, and country in his repertoire and landed in Chapel Hill, where he utilized the university’s library and studied art, theater, history and southern culture. With his studies and musical prowess, he eventually rose to fame in the early 90’s when he formed the inspiring North Carolina ragtime revival group, the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

After having recorded a couple of highly acclaimed records, played at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, President Clinton’s second inaugural ball, and countless television and radio appearances, the ride finally came to end when litigation took precedence over making music. The infighting among the members of the band took its toll and left Mathus feeling let down by his former friends. “I learned a great lesson though, in that I never lost my love of arts, refusing to let this betrayal make me jaded or cynical,” he said. “I got into music for the joy and adventure and clung to that tenaciously.”

Life has taken Mathus back to Oxford and his Mississippi roots, where he currently resides in a more rural-than-urban setting sandwiched between two cotton fields. Along with the members of the Tri-State Coalition, Mathus and friends have put together a ten-song collection of tunes reflecting a part of his life that is both heartbreaking and optimistic. y jimbomathus.com “White Buffalo” is an album filled with

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

online:

Southern gothic imagery, plenty of rootsy twang and romp-n’-stomp rock n’ roll. Songs like the mandolin-driven “In the Garden” and raging honky-tonk “Fake Hex” make this authentic songwriter a true pleasure to follow on his pursuit to creating art. So does Mathus’ journey reflect the life that has been lived or the life that is passing? His hero and mentor from afar, William Faulkner, would say yes to both, and I bet he’d enjoy Mathus’ “White Buffalo” and its stories about the great and mysterious South too.

Q&A with Jimbo Mathus SML: You come from a family of musicians. What was it like growing up in a home filled with music?

Jimbo Mathus: It was definitely an adventure growing up as I did with music all around. I was drawn to it as a very small child and really preferred “playing” with the grown-ups than with the children my own age. I learned hundreds of songs by the age of 13. It was like a dream, man!

Mandolin was your first instrument.

Was that because the family band needed a mandolin player?

Musicians gravitated to our home to play with my dad’s bunch. Often, they would leave their instruments and retrieve them later. A distant cousin left a mandolin one night. I was only six years old, and the mandolin I found lying on the floor was just my size, so I gravitated toward it. Dad taught me the rudiments.

The area of Mississippi in which you grew up seems remote and isolated from the rest of the state. Did the history and culture you absorbed during your youth seemed sheltered or unfilled?

My youth in Northeast Mississippi was in the 70s and 80s, but it could have just as easily been the 50s. We had no computers or cable TV. “The Lone Ranger” was on TV after school. Kids entertained themselves with sports, hunting, fishing and, in my case, music. I can’t really think of a preferable way to be raised, just sort of trapped in time like that. I was eager to leave but appreciate it so much now.

The South is filled with interesting contradictions, in many different aspects. Have you ever found yourself living on both sides of the fence?

I have lived and been an observer to the extremes of deep South culture. My mom’s family was Italian immigrants to the

Mississippi Delta—some of whom never spoke English.

My father’s family, from the hills of Northeast Mississippi, was settlers there in the Civil War/pioneer/sawmill culture of the 1870s. My father became an attorney, which provided us with a comfortable life, but he never let us forget we came from working people, always keeping me in the deer camps and backwoods places, always working me in different ways. I have seen life thoroughly from the bottom up and especially have been drawn to the underdogs along the way.

All of these experiences serve me well in my writing, as I write from pure experience, not conjecture, second-person or fantasy.

MOUNTAIN MUSIC

Touring and playing with Buddy Guy must have been another milestone in your career. How would you describe those years playing with him?

Mathus: Right about the time of the first lawsuit in 2000, I got the call from Buddy Guy to come and record and collaborate with him. Wow! What an experience. I worked with him then and through the mid-2000s. I was a part of the famous Double Trouble Rhythm Section, backing Mr. Guy coast-to-coast. I accepted his Grammy for him for Best Traditional Blues in 2003. I toured in his band and company, and I learned from him how to be truly fearless as a guitarist and performer.

“Tennessee Walker Mare” is a loving tribute to your family, but specifically your mother, isn’t it?

I wrote this song for my mom, while she was enduring my father’s illness— Guillian-Barre syndrome. They had actually split up after decades of marriage, and she stood by him through this terrible illness and took care of him, something he probably didn’t deserve.

She would stay in the ICU in Tucson all day and have to drive back out to Cochise at night to feed and water their walking horses and hunting dogs. I learned about real strength and commitment. The lyrics to the song are all autobiographical.

“Money was no object/there was no money to be had/back in Carolina/Johnny Law saw to that” refers to the first SNZ lawsuit. “Word came down from back

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east/I tell y’all that it wasn’t no joke/four riders and a bloodhound/about the time that the levee broke” refers to the second lawsuit.

Another one of my personal favorites is “Hatchie Bottoms.” The lyrics almost create a mythical place in my mind, a place no one would dare go unless they came from there. How much truth is found in this song?

Hatchie Bottoms is an area in North Mississippi, also known as the 9th district.

It is the drainage area of the Tennessee and Tombigbee rivers, flowing south west, turning into the Tallahatchie, then Yalobusha, then Yazoo, then ultimately the Mississippi River. It is the ancestral home of my Scottish forbearers, arriving in mid1800’s as pioneers in the region. It is a very hilly area, full of rills and dark hollows, very remote to this day. Areas known as chalybeate (pronounced cleebit), Theo, Falkner, Walnut and Mathis Mississippi.

Those are areas you really don’t want to be in after dark, as an outsider. Every word in the song is true and autobiographical.

I know your life’s work is not nearly through. What other projects (both musical and artistic) are you going to pursue in the near future?

I’m excited about the future and what it holds for me. My life, creative and otherwise, feels as if it’s just beginning.

There is so much to learn, express and interpret. I thank God for the chance to be alive here on Earth and my many blessings.

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BIKER RALLY SUPPORTS ZAC BROWN CHARITY

Swain favorite uncorks expansion

Motorcyclists will convene in Helen, Ga., May 30June 2 for the annual Southeast Victory Motorcycle rally, held in tandem with the USRiderNews’ Reunion Run. The Southeast Victory Rally started in Perry, Ga., in 2005. A group of Victory riders, members of The Victory Motorcycle Club, from Georgia and Florida decided to meet one weekend and Perry was a central spot. In 2006, the SEVR was moved to Helen. The goal has always been to provide an opportunity for Victory enthusiasts to ride, have fun, and socialize all while raising a substantial donation for charity.

Since 2011, the rally has supported Camp Southern Ground—a project of GRAMMY-Award winning musician Zac Brown. Brown donated this 500-acre piece of property, set in the farmlands of Georgia 40 minutes south of Atlanta, to begin Camp Southern Ground—what will soon become a state-of-the-art facility that practices cutting-edge programs to assist and rehabilitate children with neurobehavioral and learning difficulties (including ADD/ADHD, Dyslexia, Tourette’s Syndrome, Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorders as well as serve children with diverse backgrounds and socioeconomic levels). Zac is the father of four and, while none of his own children are afflicted by any of these disorders, he has long recognized the necessity for every child to have access to the best resources in order to be able to grow and succeed.

For more information, visit victoryrally.com.

OUT & ABOUT

Business is booming for Bryson City’s Cork and Bean—or at least that’s the trend co-owners Scott Mastej and Ron LaRocque hope will continue upon expanding their café, opened three years ago.

“I think we wanted to do it from the day we started,” Mastej said.

“We would not have been able to do it without this space next door.”

The downtown favorite closed for a major interior expansion, including knocking out a portion of the wall that once separated it from the next door building to create a new restaurant space.

Thankfully, the two buildings were once connected in the past, making the tear down relatively easy. A small, brick hall connects the two sides.

The new side of Cork and Bean will be a full-service restaurant, offering the sweet and savory crepes that the shop is known for as well as more hearty menu items. Mastej said that the menu will likely change often and depend on what the chef and other kitchen staff feel inspired to make.

“We have given them the creative license,” Mastej said, adding that everything will feature “fresh, local, organic ingredients.”

The original Cork and Bean space was included in the remodel. The coffee counter was replaced with a bar, and patrons can order up light fare, a coffee drink or alcohol beverages. Cork and Bean previously offered bottled beers and wine, but it will now include a full-service bar with a bartender serving up everything from glasses of wine to locally brewed beers to cocktails.

FROM WITHIN LINES OF CODE AND PROSE, ART IS REVEALED How does a computer view the human world—say, the human genome or literary works such as Herman Melville’s Moby Dick?

Two UT professors have provided some insight, thanks to a code they’ve created that allows the computer to transform large-scale data and information into digital images— compressed pictures composed of colorful lines.

Evan Meaney, assistant professor of art, and Amy Szczepanski, assistant research professor in electrical engineering and computer science, have made a body of artwork called Null_Sets using their code. They’ve also provided a way for the public to make their own art using the code, whether it’s converting a love song, the Patriot Act, or the deed of

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one’s house into Computational colorful images.

Science and Oak Ridge “The goal is to National Laboratory. challenge people’s The idea for the assumptions about project began in 2010 what computer data while Szczepanski looks like,” was working on an Szczepanski said. “In RDAV project that some sense, people was trying to find trust the computer ways to encourage too much and researchers in other imagine it as some fields besides the magical box that hard sciences to does something. They consider using The Odyssey by Homer. Written 800 B.C.E. forget that there’s supercomputing to Translated by Samuel Butler actually a lot of help their work. human work that went on behind the She contacted Meaney, a digital artist, scenes to make it happen.” after a recommendation from UT’s visual Szczepanski and Meaney designed their arts committee. Together, they wrote the approach by running code on a code for Null_Sets. supercomputer at the Remote Data To learn more about the Null_Sets Analysis and Visualization Center (RDAV) project, view the collection of art, or to create test images. The center is an make your own, visit Meaney’s website initiative of the UT Joint Institute for at evanmeaney.com/ns.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

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d e p a r t m e n t :

OUTDOORS

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WNC FLY FISHING TRAIL

State parks: Just what the veterinarian ordered

Wading the Fly Fishing Trail Expert angler and Sylva, N.C., native Josh Stephens earned a silver medal in team competition during the 2012 National Fly Fishing Championship in Bend, Oregon.

Stephens captured the medal as a member of one of three Team USA squads competing. He also placed eighth individually.

“This is the tournament that determines who goes to the World Championships and represents this country,” Stephens said. “It’s not easy. The competition is strong.”

Stephens has now won a team medal in seven straight national championships, along with two individual medals during that span.

A total of 60 anglers on 12 teams competed at the 2012 National Championship, which was hosted by the U.S. Fly Fishing Team.

Stephens posted a personal best when he caught 63 regulation fish in three hours during the fourth round. That catapulted him into third overall, before a tough final round of lake fishing dropped him out of individual contention.

“It still was a good finish,” Stephens said. “I’m happy with it.”

He also was happy to promote the nation’s first officially designated fly fishing trail—the WNC Fly Fishing Trail in Jackson County— which sponsored Stephens’ trip to the National Championship.

“It means a lot to say our local fly fishing trail here in North Carolina sponsored me. It’s something I’m very, very proud of,” said Stephens.

For info on the Fly Fishing Trail, call 800.962.1911 or visit FlyFishingTrail.com.

Caged bears draw federal scrutiny Bear zoos in Cherokee, N.C., have long been a part of the tourist experience; however, the zoos have evoked the wrath of animal rights activists for the deplorable conditions in which the bears are kept.

In early 2013, after a slew of federal warnings and violations, federal inspectors fined Chief Saunook Bear Zoo

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A recent study found that 30 to 50 percent of American dogs are obese, closely mimicking the human epidemic, and that a third of their owners do not realize it is a problem. To motivate Fido and his human companion to get more exercise, the Georgia Veterinary Medical Association (GVMA) has partnered with Georgia’s State Parks to encourage healthy walks in the woods.

Through the new Pets RXercise program, veterinarians can give their canine patients a “prescription” to visit a Georgia State Park. The prescription is redeemed for free parking, which is normally $5. Park admission is free and there is no fee for hiking on trails.

What’s good for the pet is usually good for the person. As exercise buddies, dogs can Pets RXercise is the first program of its kind to be initiated by a state veterinary medical association. It’s also the first venture combining animal nutrition and veterinary pharmaceuticals solutions, in tandem with regular exercise, to create a multi-faceted approach to prevent obesity for happier, healthier pets and people.

Trails can be found at GeorgiaStateParks.org/petsrxercise.

Georgia’s State Parks allow leashed dogs on walking trails, with some exceptions at Panola Mountain and Tallulah Gorge state parks. Dogs are not allowed on bike trails or horse trails.

Leashes must be six feet long or shorter, and owners must clean up after their pets.

Learn more at GeorgiaStateParks.org or by calling 800.864.7275.

MARGARET HESTER PHOTO

and suspended its license to display bears to the public until corrections were made.

At Chief Saunooke, 11 bears are kept in concrete pits. There are two other sites on the reservation that display caged bears.

Cherokee’s only restrictions specifically for legally obtained, caged bears require owners to flush the animals’ cages once a day with water and once every two months with disinfectant; the bears should receive adequate food, may not be restrained with collars, chains or stakes, and should be held in an iron- or steel-

VSMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 1

barred cage that is at least eight feet by 12 feet by six feet. The maximum fine for violating the standards is $5,000.

Tribal council members have floated the idea of a wildlife sanctuary and animal rehabilitation center, which could house the bears—releasing them back into the wild is not a viable option for their own health and safety. As of February, tribal council members elected to postpone any action on the issue until the tribe’s policies regarding caged animals could be reviewed.

Music Mountains IN THE

— all summer long!

Concerts on the Creek FREE summer music series every Friday night from 7:30-9:30 p.m. at Bridge Street Park in Sylva.

Concerts begin Memorial Day weekend and conclude Labor Day weekend.

Jackson County Chamber www.mountainlovers.com for a detailed schedule 828.586.2155

1, 2 and 3-bedroom apartments available.

Just a short 25 minutes to Asheville, Sylva, or Cherokee

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Groovin' on the Green 58974

Select Friday summer nights from 6:30-8 p.m. in Cashiers at the Village Green.

The Greater Cashiers Area Merchants Association www.visitcashiersvalley.com 828.743.8428

Jackson County, NC JACKSON COUNTY TOURISM DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

800.962.1911

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GET YOUR

Escape to the mountains ...

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D ISCOVER H IGHL ANDS , N.C.

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cool summers great hiking beautiful waterfalls majestic views

Help protect the beautiful places in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the life within them

VISIT YOUR TAG OFFICE OR GO TO FriendsOfTheSmokies.org

828-526-5841 highlandschamber.org

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

department:

OUTDOORS

The Virginia Creeper trail follows the former route of the Virginia Creeper railroad for 34 miles. The scenic route is popular with cyclists. PHOTO BY CAMERON DAVIDSON /CAMERONDAVIDSON.COM. COURTESY OF VIRGINIA TOURISM CORP.

Virginia Creeper Trail tracks through scenic Southern Appalachians

I

n the heart of Abingdon, Va., begins the Virginia Creeper Trail, a former train line turned multi-use pathway for recreation.

The 34-mile trail climbs from its base, marked by a historic Norfolk and Western engine 433, once used on the tracks, to nearly 4,000 feet at the Virginia/North Carolina line. Much of the trail is in the Jefferson National Forest.

The Virginia Creeper Trail, administered by the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area staff, was conceptualized in the 1970s when Norfolk and Western wanted the railroad shut down and local planning commission members suggested using the old line for recreation, akin to a trail that had been developed in Wisconsin. However, the idea got some backlash—property owners didn’t want to share their land. The towns of Abingdon and Damascus eventually purchased the trailway with Virginia Division of Conservation & Recreation grant funding. There were negotiations with N&W to keep the train trestles in place, and eventually, work began decking the trestles, grading and shaping the trail, which was completed in 1984.

Today, the trail welcomes walkers, bikers, hikers, and horseback riders. No motorized vehicles are permitted on the trail. From beginning to end, travelers cross 47 train trestles—one is a replacement brought in from Yadkinville, N.C., when the original trestle just south of Watauga Road burned, and another was destroyed by a tornado in 2011 but rebuilt.

Biking is the trail’s most popular activity, and bike rental locations are easy to find in both Abingdon and Damascus— seven Damascus rental locations are listed on the trail’s website.

Those who bring their own bikes can choose their own adventure by riding any portion of the trail, the whole trail end-to-end, or go for a full 68-mile round trip journey. Shuttles are available from rental locations and will transport riders to selected points on the trail, and even go to the top of the trail so that riders may cruise down. No one has spent more time on the trail than Lawrence Dye, a quietly friendly man who, in his retirement, has become the Virginia Creeper Trail’s official ambassador. He’s pedaled enough miles on the trail to circle the equator three times over, he says.

Look for nature’s companions along the trail—birding is a popular activity. Louisiana waterthrush and Carolina Wren often be seen flying along the creek. Black-throated blue and blackand-white warblers and warbling vireos can be found, along with Carolina chickadees. Beavers’ work also can be seen among the trees.

For more information, visit vacreepertrail.us or call 800.628.7202.

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MOUNTAIN LETTERS

Putting down roots in coal country

BY REBECCA TOLLEY-STOKES

B

eck dreamt of opening a The Little Bookstore of bookstore…someday.

Big Stone Gap: A Memoir That opportunity apof Friends, Community, peared sooner than Welch and and the Uncommon Beck thought, so they followed Pleasure of a Good Book their bliss and bought a 1903

by Wendy Welch. New York: mansion in Big Stone Gap, Va. St. Martin’s Press, 2012.

Welch, a native of the region, writes a warm memoir of the ups and downs of how the couple found their way in an insular coalfield community, living on second floor of The Lonesome Pine Used Bookstore. Every chapter demonstrates the bookstore’s ability to charm its way into the heart of the town, despite the region’s depressed economy, reputation for illiteracy, and the trend of online book selling. “Living in a shrinking community meant every customer had to be wooed, feted, and treated like a precious commodity. They needed to believe in us, but the very fact that we’d chosen to settle in their town negated trust in our prowess,” Welch writes. The community seemed to ask why, if the brightest of Appalachia left the region, would anyone in their right mind move to a diminishing town to establish a business?

Each time adversity rears its head, Welch and Beck rally with surprisingly effective problem solving that saves the day and keeps the bookstore functioning. Welch waxes eloquent about the bookstore’s

POLAR BEAR PARABLE EXPLORES ISSUES

B

ooks transport readers from the routine business of the day to another place. Zac Unger’s Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye is set in Churchill, Manitoba, a place most will never travel to—it’s 600 miles north of Winnepeg, and one doesn’t find oneself there accidentally or cheaply; however, it is the polar bear capital of the world. As the darlings of the global warming movement, polar bears are included in the Endangered Species Act, and Unger sought to interview scientists studying the polar bears’ habitats.

Spending a week in Manitoba in the off-season, when the temperatures are

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role as a community center. She and Beck provide a third space for residents to escape the pressures of the world. Readers and browsers alike relax with a cup of tea or coffee and a bite of Beck’s shortbread.

They arrange ceilidhs, and other events at the store.

Undoubtedly this book will appeal to people who love books, reading, and bookstores. It’s a testament to the power of good will, care, and community building in the twenty-first century, and how those simple values are at the heart of doing good business. Learning about the people whose lives the bookstore has touched makes the book exceptional reading, and the bookstores itself a destination.

90 degrees and ursus maritumus will suck Never Look a Polar Bear in mosquitoes devour you down the rabbit hole. the Eye: A Family Filed Trip humans, is a miserable Unger presents a divisive to the Arctic’s Edge in experience as Unger Search of Adventure, Truth, topic—global warming describes it; nonetheless, a and the possible and Mini-Marshmallows by week in Churchill wasn’t extinction of polar bears— Zac Unger. Boston, MA: enough, so Unger moved in a balanced way. Unger’s DaCapo Press, 2013. his wife and three young book is filled with children there to learn as fascinating tidbits such as much as possible about the polar bears studying bear scat to determine their and the people who study them, promote eating habits, what to do in the event of a them, and make a living from them. The bear attack, stories about the people, town of less than 1,000 swells with history and culture of Hudson Bay. Sure, 10,000 tourists in October and November he admits his bias as someone wanting to see the bears. “to be a hero of the environmental While the title might cause someone to movement,” but his story underscores the pick up the book, once begun, Unger’s complexity of biology, science, nature, brisk, delightful, and often irreverent people, and our symbiosis. writing and the pure crash course about — Rebecca Tolley-Stokes

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

Foxfire

Museum & Heritage Center

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Home of the Foxfire books– our newest:

45th Anniv.

Experience Southern Appalachia as recorded, documented, and collected by the students of Rabun County, GA—and shared with the world through The Foxfire Magazine and The Foxfire Book volumes. Visit the legacy they created in honor of their neighbors and ancestors through 45+ years of work gathering and preserving their unique mountain heritage.

Museum gift shop offers regional pottery, crafts, Foxfire & other books.

Take US 441 to Mountain City, GA. Turn onto Black Rock Mtn. Parkway.

One mile up, follow the brown signs. -

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YOUR GUIDE TO REAL ESTATE IN HAYWOOD COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA

MountainHomesNow.com

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MOUNTAIN ARTS

Comprehensive collection of African-American art on display “Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art” is on display at the Knoxville Museum of Art through June.

The Thompsons amassed a remarkable collection of art by African Americans from around the nation with particular attention given to artists who have typically not been recognized in the traditional narratives of African American art.

In addition to acknowledged “masters,” the Thompsons have collected works by artists who have been labeled “emerging,” “unknown,” “outsider,” “eccentric,” “vernacular,” “regional” and more. The result is a collection that redefines the landscape of American art, offering a more in-depth, inclusive understanding of African American artists and their aesthetic and social concerns.

Represented in this diverse selection of artists are Beauford and Joseph Delaney, two of Knoxville, Tenn.’s, most important artists. Born to a minister-father, the Delaney brothers learned to draw on Sunday school cards at church and were given art lesson by distinguished local artist Lloyd Branson. The brothers left Knoxville in the mid 1920s to pursue their art careers in larger arenas, but followed very different artistic paths. After studying in Boston, Beauford (1901-1979) chose New York and later Paris as the ideal settings for his experiments with expressive abstraction. Joseph (19903-1986) headed for Chicago before settling in New York, and remained devoted to urban realism. “Tradition Redefined” allows East Tennessee viewers familiar with the brothers’ work an opportunity to evaluate it within the broader context of African American art of the last century.

For more information, visit knoxart.org or call 865.525.6101.

‘Tis the season to photograph flowers Got an eye for the wild? Enter the 2013 Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage Photography Contest.

The contest is held in conjunction with the Wildflower Pilgrimage, a five-day event offering 146 professionally guided walks and indoor presentations which explore the region’s rich wildflowers, fauna, ecology, cultural and natural history. Categories are: Flora (flowers, trees, shrubs, & other plant 24

Louis Delsarte The Gift, 1999 Acrylic on canvas 17½ x 23½ William E. Scott Harbor Scene, ca.1920 Oil on board 17½ x 23½

life), Fauna (insects, animals), Landscape, and Youth Produced (must be applicable to Flora, Fauna or Landscape and produced by a photographer who has not reached 18 years of age at time of entry.) People or pets may be in the photographs, but must not be the predominant subject of the image. Studio images will not be accepted.

Entries must be hand-delivered to (and received by) Gatlinburg Special Events Office in Gatlinburg, Tenn., by April 25. Entries may be hand-delivered Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., with any last-day SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

entries hand-delivered to the event site at W.H. Mills Conference Center on Historic Nature Center Trail.

Prizes for first, second, and Third places, along with one honorable mention for each category will consist of a ribbon for each winner.

All winners will be selected by popular vote.

For more information including submission details, additional rules, and an entry form, visit springwildflowerpilgrimage.org/ photography-contest or contact Darrell Manis at 865.436.1127.

TRADITIONAL MOUNTAIN LIFE ON DISPLAY

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The Downtown Waynesville Association will hold the third annual Appalachian Lifestyle Celebration on Saturday, June 8, in Waynesville, N.C. The festival will be a celebration of traditional mountain craft, food, and entertainment. Exhibit space will be made available to vendors demonstrating and/or selling handmade Appalachian art and crafts in the areas of basket making, blacksmithing, leatherworking, quilting, weaving, pottery, wood working/carving, painting, etc. In addition to craft vendors, the event is seeking demonstrators of Appalachian life skills such as lumberjacking, butter churning, soap making, storytelling, native plants, and food preservation. Vendors interested in exhibiting personal collections of antique items are also being sought.

For more information regarding participating in the festival or attending, call 828.456.3517.

N.C. WINES SHOWCASED IN MORGANTON, N.C. Drink and be merry at the 4th Annual Foothills Wine Festival, showcasing some of the finest North Carolina wines of the Blue Ridge and Foothills.

Sample regional wines, chat with vintners, and peruse local arts and crafts while enjoying live music from noon to 5 p.m. on April 27 at Catawba Meadows Park in Morganton, N.C. Food trucks on the premises will dish up a variety of cuisines. The festival is family-friendly; however, identification (age 21+) is required for wine tastings. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the gate.

The Flavors of the Foothills Benefit Dinner & Auction will be held on April 26 at the Historic Waldensian Mill in Valdese, N.C. A silent and live auction will feature exciting outdoor experiences, culinary delights, getaway packages, and local works of art. Tickets, which are $65, include admission to the wine festival.

For more information, visit foothillsconservancy.org or call 828.437.9930.

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MOUNTAIN CUISINE

Southern fare with an international flair

S

tony Knob Café, established in 1962, is perhaps the only place that can get away with black velvet paintings and poached eggs, leopard print carpet and spinach and artichoke frittata. There are wings on the ceiling and oysters in the fryer, rope lights line the bar and the “Tasty Ass Short Rib Beef Burger” comes with Jack Daniel’s Bourbon Mustard.

The menu and atmosphere is purposefully, and artfully, deranged, with little rhyme or reason but plenty of taste and seasoning. There’s Greek, Thai, and Lowcountry Southern side-by-side and followed up by decadent peanut butter pie served up on an Oreo crust. This is the concept restaurant in which “a little something for everyone” actually works.

As hip as Stony Knob Café sounds, its magnanimous menu and decidedly different décor welcomes an equally eclectic customer base.

Look for 20- and 30-somethings sporting brazen tattoos alongside silver-haired scooter commanders who flock to the restaurant’s Weaverville, N.C., location about ten minutes north of Asheville proper. Brunch is particularly popular, as its 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. time slot means that meal can truly serve as a late breakfast, lunch, or early dinner. Plus, there are Bellinis and Bloody Marys for a little hair of the dog, or strong, rich Greek coffee to energize the system.

Stony Knob began at the hands of Gus Dermas, who emigrated from Greece to the U.S. in 1947. Dermas was drafted after fifteen years in the service industry, going on to serve in the Korean Conflict. Upon his return, Dermas left Greensboro, N.C., for the tiny town of Weaverville, which reminded him of his village in Greece. He and his wife took over the Stony Knob Café, raising their sons John and Yotty in the business.

The two sons eventually inherited the place, and in 2000, transitioned Stony Knob from its role as a traditional diner to its modern interpretation of a café with worldly roots.

THE FAMILY BUSINESS OF CHEESE-MAKING Carmelita, made by Looking Glass Creamery of Fairview, N.C., has been selected as a 2013 Good Food Award winner. The Good Food Awards are national in scope and aim to recognize responsible producers who craft exceptional products in various food categories including beer, cheese, charcuterie, preserves, spirits, chocolates and confections.

One of four North Carolina companies recognized for the honor, Looking Glass Creamery is known for its award winning cow and goat milk cheeses. The family operation has been in business since 2009.

Carmelita, a traditional caramel sauce

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Want to go?

Dine any day Monday-Saturday for lunch or dinner or begin with Sunday brunch. Visit stonyknobcafe.com for more information or call 828.645.3309 for reservations.

made from goat’s milk and organic sugar, is a new product line for the company.

“We spent two years researching the product, developing the label, finding the perfect jar, testing and refining the recipe, sourcing the proper equipment and the best ingredients,” said owner Jennifer Perkins. “We make it the traditional way over a flame in a copper pot with local milk and organic sugar as the two main ingredients. It takes the better part of a day stirring constantly and gently boiling the milk until it caramelizes to the perfect consistency and flavor. The goat milk base really brings incredible depth and flavor unlike any other caramel sauce. The award really affirmed to me that taking our time developing the product and process and getting it right from the

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

beginning was the proper path to take.”

The primary ingredient in Carmelita is goat’s milk from Round Mountain Creamery. Round Mountain Creamery is a local, independent dairy which is the source for all the goat milk used in Looking Glass Creamery production.

Carmelita is made in three flavors; Traditional, Coffee (featuring organic coffee roasted by Dynamite Roasting), and Bourbon Vanilla (with Kentucky Bourbon and Madagascar Vanilla Beans).

Carmelita can be purchased and shipped nationally via the company’s website and from select retailers, or find Looking Glass at the Tailgate Market in Black Mountain, N.C. from late spring to fall.

To learn more or order online, visit ashevillecheese.com.

iPad in one hand, milk in the other, the milkman cometh In an era of giant shopping centers and gourmet markets, some may view Jonathon Flaum’s new service as a bit of nostalgia from a bygone era—but they’d be missing the point. Farm to Home Milk, a delivery service door-to-door to local homeowners, brings milk from healthy, pasture-raised cows straight to customers.

Flaum is a husband, father, and writer who for the past ten years published books and articles about meaning and creativity in the workplace. Farm to Home Milk is a result of that writing.

“I saw a need for a service and I went for it,” Flaum said. “Some will like the nostalgia of a milkman or enjoy supporting someone who runs his own company, and ordering milk and other grocery products cuts back on impulse buying and saves on gas and time.

With the milkman bringing weekly staples of healthy dairy, meat, bread, eggs, fish, and coffee, it becomes part of people’s daily routine. Once you sign up you don’t have to think about it again.”

The milk is pasteurized, homogenized, and glass-bottled just 80 feet from the milking parlor. There are no tanker trucks or distribution centers. The milk has no hormones or antibiotics and is delivered in reusable glass bottles.

Flaum delivers from his USDA approved refrigerated truck. In addition to milk, he offers butter, bread, cheese, goat milk, organic beef and pork, farm fresh eggs, chicken, duck, trout, salmon and roasted coffee. All Farm to Home Milk suppliers are local to Western North Carolina, with strong support from the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project.

Despite the throwback era concept, Farm to Home Milk customers place their orders online and Flaum, with an iPad on board, keeps track of orders, routes and bottle deposits. All ordering and billing is done online through Farmtohomemilk.com.

Farm to Home began with delivery to the city of Asheville, as well as Weaverville, Arden and Candler with other neighborhoods to be added throughout the year. Those who live and work outside the delivery area may become “ambassadors” by putting together a group of 10 or more customers with the group’s products being delivered to one central drop off point.

For more information or to register and order, visit www.farmtohomemilk.com.

Goat Cheese Spoonbread with Cherry Tomato Sauté “I love this cheesy twist on spoonbread, which is really a light, moist, cornmeal soufflé. The cherry tomato sauté is the perfect juice accompaniment—it complements the flavors but doesn’t get in the way. It is also a delightful way to cook cherry tomatoes and enhances the flavor of supermarket cherry tomatoes. While spoonbread is usually served “on the side,” with butter, or as a vehicle to sop up rich gravy, this one can take pride of table as the main event at a brunch or a light lunch. It’s even good reheated.”

— Miriam Rubin Makes 6 side-dish or 4 main-dish servings.

For The Spoonbread 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, divided 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, divided 2 cups whole milk 1 cup stone-ground white or yellow cornmeal 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus a pinch for the egg whites 4 large eggs, separated 8 ounces soft, fresh goat cheese, cut into pieces

For The Cherry Tomatoes 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 garlic clove, minced 1/3 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley 4 cups halved cherry or grape tomatoes, any color 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper To make the spoonbread, preheat the over to 375 degrees. Coat a 2quart, 8-inch square glass baking dish with 1 tablespoon of the butter and dust with 1/4 cup of the Parmesan.

Heat the milk in a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat until it just starts to bubble. Whisk in the cornmeal in a slow, steady stream. Bring to a boil and cook, stirring frequently, for 1 minute. Remove from the heat.

With a wooden spoon, beat in the remaining 2 tablespoons butter, baking powder, and salt. Beat in the egg yolks,

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then the goat cheese, and few pieces at a time, and then the remaining 1/2 cup Parmesan, stirring vigorously until well Tomatoes: a Savor blended. the South cookbook Beat the

by Miriam Rubin. egg whites Chapel Hill, N.C.: and a pinch University of North of salt in a Carolina Press, 2013. medium bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until stiff, glossy peaks form when the beaters are lifted.

Stir a big spoonful of the whites into the cornmeal mixture to lighten it. Fold in the remaining whites with a large rubber spatula. Scrape into the prepared dish.

Bake until the spoonbread is puffed and firm to the touch and the top is browned, 30-35 minutes.

To make the cherry tomatoes, about 10 minutes before the spoonbread is ready, melt the butter in a large, heavy skillet over medium heat. Stir in the garlic, then the parsley. Cook, stirring until fragrant, about 1 minute.

Add the cherry tomatoes, salt, and pepper and toss to mix well. Increase the heat and cook, stirring often, until the tomatoes collapse, 4-5 minutes.

Taste for seasoning. Cover and keep warm. Cut spoonbread into pieces and spoon some cherry tomatoes alongside.

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Exploring the area? There’s a trail for that!

BY MARLA HARDEE MILLING

T

iny seeds can grow into mighty oaks, and one of the first seeds in the trend of tourism trails in Western North Carolina came in 1996 when the Ashevillebased craft organization Handmade in America published its “Craft Heritage Trails” guidebook.

Since that time, the development of tourism trails has grown at an impressive rate and offers visitors a closer look at everything from crafts to music to fly fishing, cheese to moonshine to quilts.

“I think the reason why so many trails are popping up is that the partners along the trails have recognized the opportunities that exist when they come together in a way that makes for a more robust experience for the traveler,” said Marla Tambellini, Deputy Executive Director at the Asheville Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.

“The trails have the ability to move people throughout Western North Carolina. The more they learn about this area, the more likely they will come back and also share the experience with their friends.”

Some visitors may find it easy to choose a trail that fuels their personal passions and interests, but others consider the process mind boggling as they attempt to pinpoint where to start among the wealth of trails available.

“There are more than 300 different trails in Western North Carolina alone. One of my goals is to organize all the trails on one website,” said Gwynne Rukenbrod, Executive Director of Handmade in America. “That’s one of my grandiose ideas. How can we do this to make it more comprehensive? Doing it in a digital way will be the most useful.”

The State of Tennessee has also embraced the trend of tourism trails and has developed 16 trails that encompass parts of all the state’s 95 counties. The initiative is called Discover Tennessee Trails & Byways.

“The idea was given to us by Aubrey Preston of Leiper’s Fork, just south of Nashville,” said Dave Jones, the East TN regional representative for the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development.

Preston suggested creating a trail to show people other things they could do outside the major metro areas of Tennessee. By doing so, the hope was that visitors would stay longer and hopefully plan a repeat visit.

The first trail was called the Old Tennessee Trail, which was launched in November 2009. “The Governor has an emphasis on rural communities and finding ways to get some wealth into those areas,” says Jones. “Tourism is a great way to do that.”

In the process of creating the Old Tennessee Trail, officials decided they could create similar trails for the rest of the state.

“We designed sixteen trails originating from major metro areas.

They are not linear trails—these are circle loop trails,” says Jones. “We wanted the names of the trails to reflect the culture and the heritage of the area. We gave them names almost like a theme park.”

Some of those unique trail names in the state’s program include The Jack Trail, Screaming Eagle, Ring of Fire, Promised Land and Pie in the Sky. Easy to download detailed brochures and self-guided trail maps are at the ready on tntrailsandbyways.com.

Here’s a look at ten trails that highlight a variety of interests in WNC and Eastern Tennessee.

Tennessee’s Gray Fossil Site and Museum is one of many points of interest on the Sunny Side Trail.

PHOTO COURTESY OF TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

30

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

PHOTO COURTESY OF HANDMADE IN AMERICA

Craft Heritage Trail handmadeinamerica.org The trail celebrates the craft artist’s who are living and working in Western North Carolina. It highlights the studios, but also provides visitors with information on places along the way—from restaurants to bed and breakfast inns to historical sites and special attractions.

“We have expanded our service area to include 25 counties of Western North Carolina. It mirrors the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area,” said Rukenbrod. “When the first guidebook came out, it covered 21 counties. By the time of the third printing, it covered 25 counties, but was not thorough in every county. We have an online version where visitors can build an itinerary on our website.”

Thanks to involvement from local community members, the Quilt Trail is steadily growing one square at a time.

PHOTO COURTESY OF QUILT TRAILS OF WNC

Farms, Gardens and Countryside Trail handmadeinamerica.org After the Craft Orchard at Altapass.

Heritage Trail FILE PHOTO guidebook came out, a group of farmers approached Handmade in America and said they wanted a book.

This resulted in the first Farms, Gardens & Countryside Trails of Western North Carolina, which was first published in 2002.

The guidebook details six driving loops that cover almost 500 stops at farms, gardens, restaurants known for farm-to-table choices and dishes indigenous to the region, bed and breakfast inns with gardens and grounds deserving of recognition, plus stops at a variety of heritage sites including Grandfather Mountain, the Orchard at Altapass, Big Botanicals, Oconaluftee Indian Village, Waldensian Heritage Wines and The Garden of John C. Campbell Folk School.

“We don’t have any plans on updating the Farms books at this time, but we are working closely with WNC Agriculture groups to create farm to fiber tours,” said Rukenbrod. “This is where we highlight farms that produce the raw material for fiber and fiber artists along the routes.”

Quilt Trails quilttrailswnc.org

y

arcd.org/quilttrail

“We’re still surprised when we hear of people who don’t know about the Quilt Trail,” said Barbara Webster, Executive Director of the Quilt Trail of WNC. While it’s hard to quantify the numbers of people who travel the trail, Webster said the Interstate Welcome Centers tell her the Quilt Trail rack card is the most popular one “This year, we’ll print 50,000 because we went through 20,000 last year,” she said.

The idea of developing quilt trails started 30 years ago when Ohio resident Donna Sue Groves put a quilt block on her barn in memory of her mother. There are now quilt trails in almost every U.S. state.

“It spread like wildfire, and it’s all been grassroots,” Webster said.

“The more blocks we get up, the bigger the tourist attraction it becomes and that’s good for everybody.”

One of the best places in WNC to

begin the hunt for quilt squares is in Burnsville, N.C. The town boasts 50 squares and leads to more than 200 squares in nearby Yancey and Mitchell counties.

WWW.SMLIV.COM

31

More than 1,000 quilt blocks are found in twelve WNC counties and are continuing to spread. Plans are underway to launch a trail in Henderson County soon, and Webster says they also have their eye on Buncombe County. Northeast Tennessee also has an expanding Quilt Trail effort.

Webster says one of the best places in WNC to begin the hunt for quilt squares is in Burnsville, N.C. This Yancey County town boasts 50 squares and leads to more than 200 squares in nearby Yancey and Mitchell counties.

“We can custom design a block to capture a family’s special story and they get to name the block,” Webster said. “We publish tour guides with the stories in them. It helps preserve the history of that site.”

The many fishing spots in Jackson County, N.C., are brought to light thanks to the WNC Fly Fishing Trail.

N.C. ARTS COUNCIL PHOTO

PHOTO COURTESY OF WNC FLY FISHING TRAIL

information about the trail after seeing the truck roll past.

Since the trail was launched four years ago, Spiro says her office has gone through 50,000 maps pinpointing 15 spots for catching brook, brown and rainbow trout.

“We created a water resistant map so fishermen could hang on to it,” Spiro said. “But the 50,000 maps does not include the maps people have downloaded from our website and printed for themselves.”

When the idea for the trail emerged, Spiro was brainstorming for ways to bring new people into Jackson County. “This came about basically when the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad made a decision to stop departure points in Dillsboro,” she said.

She had a small brochure that she had created following tourist questions about fishing in the area. Her brainstorming group picked up on that and came up with additional fishing spots that offer public access. They drove to all the locations with a GPS in order to put the exact coordinates on the website.

Spiro is also working with state legislator Joe Sam Queen and the N.C. Fish and Wildlife Department to have three of the towns in her county—Sylva, Dillsboro and Webster—designated as official Mountain Heritage Trout Cities in N.C. She expects to receive that designation by the fall of 2013.

Blue Ridge Music Trails www.blueridgemusic.org

WNC Fly Fishing Trail flyfishingtrail.com Julie Spiro, Executive Director of the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce, had a fun moment recently while traveling the interstate back home from a meeting in Hickory, N.C. She came up behind a tractor-trailer and spotted the wrapped ad on the truck’s side featuring Jackson County fly fisherman Josh Stevens, who won the national fly-fishing championship last year in Bend, Oregon. The ad promotes the WNC Fly Fishing Trail, which Julie helped spearhead.

“It was kind of like hearing your song for the first time on the radio,” Spiro said.

The truck, based in Jackson County, travels all over the southeast and as far away as California, and Spiro sees the results. She gets frequent emails from people who request maps and more 32

“Western North Carolina is probably one of the richest places in America for roots based music making. I’d put it up against any place in the U.S.,” said Wayne Martin, Executive Director of the N.C. Arts Council.

The Blue Ridge Music Trails, which originated in 2003, ties North Carolina’s musical legacy together by providing visitors and residents alike with information on public community music venues in 28 counties.

It’s a self-guided process without any one particular route. When one goes on the website, one may look up all of the events happening in a certain time period and map out one’s own trail.

“One of the things different in WNC is we have some very well known musicians who have shaped the region’s music as well as the nation’s music—artists like Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs and Etta James,” Martin said.

“A lot of people want to come and be close to the traditions that gave birth to these musicians. That’s what this trail project is all about.

They learn about the history, but they are also immersed in the contemporary music making that goes on in all of these communities.”

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The Blue Ridge Music Trail highlights about 150 venues including small ones like community dances and jam sessions to fiddlers’ conventions and large events like Shindig on the Green and Merlefest.

The guidebook, which includes a CD of music from the region, sells for $20 and is available from UNC Press.

WNC Cheese Trail wnccheesetrail.com The idea of creating a cheese trail had been simmering on the back burner for a long time, but last year, Jennifer Perkins at Looking Glass Creamery in Fairview, N.C., spearheaded development of the WNC Cheese Trail.

Cynthia Sharpe, owner of Oakmoon Creamery in Bakersville, N.C., praises Perkins’ initiative and says she sees the collaboration as a win-win situation for the cheese makers, the local communities and the travelers.

“People who come to our area who have epicurean interests can pick up our map, plot out an area or do the whole trail,” Sharpe said.

“Right now, the trail features eight to ten cheese-makers and we’re hoping to bring more on.”

Some of the farmers don’t have an actual sales outlet on their property or availability to meet with visitors, but being part of the trail still provides visibility by giving travelers information about where the products are sold.

There are plans to add in affinity members, such as breweries, wineries and folks who do charcuterie. “We’ll look for anything that goes well with cheese as well as offer membership to eateries and accommodations that in some way have a connection to us as cheese makers,” Sharpe said.

The group is developing a print map of the WNC Cheese Trail, but downloadable maps are already available on their website. Right now the trail is concentrated in WNC with a few stops in the Piedmont, but interest is growing and Sharpe says it could become a statewide trail in the future.

Cherokee Heritage Trails cherokeeheritagetrail.org The Cherokee Heritage Trails has a distinction that sets it apart from most of the other self-guided trails highlighted here—visitors have the opportunity to request a personalized tour.

“You can actually meet up with a Cherokee tribal member who will take you to sacred sites and other important places while sharing stories and history they grew up with,” said Sally Peterson, Folklife Director of the N.C. Arts Council. “They work with tour groups and can also work with a single family.”

Tours are lined up through the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, located at 589 Tsali Blvd. in Cherokee. Barbara Duncan, Education Director at the Museum, has been involved with the project since the first talks in 1995. A task force of 23 people, representing a variety of agencies including the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indian worked on development of the trail with the motivation that they could find a way to combine cultural preservation, environmental preservation and economic development for tourism.

In 2003 they officially unveiled the Cherokee Heritage Trails to the public.

“The next year, it received a Preserve America Presidential Award,” Duncan said. “These trails went on to become the basis of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area.”

34

Cherokee Heritage Trails seeks a balance between cultural preservation, environmental education and economic development. FILE PHOTO

“You can actually meet up with a Cherokee tribal member who will take you to sacred sites and other important places while sharing stories and history they grew up with.”

— Sally Peterson, Folklife Director of the N.C. Arts Council

“It’s been an important factor in the tourism and economy of the area,” Peterson said. “It provides an opportunity for a much more accurate, detailed and interesting way to [explore] the area. Before the trail was started, the Cherokee had a number of attractions.

Many were authentic, but others were not owned by people from the area and attracted tourists to a less authentic Indian experience.”

“The other thing that’s happened is the work on the guidebook has been picked up by Cherokee in Oklahoma to educate their youth and people about the history of their homeland here,” Duncan said. “There’s a larger cultural revitalization where people have come to value and appreciate the language and culture and historic places along with the interest of sharing these with the larger world.”

Rocky Top: Smoky Peaks to Crafts & Creeks Trail tntrailsandbyways.com/trail/17/rocky-top-trail The Rocky Top: Smoky Peaks to Crafts and Creeks Trail is one of the newest of the Discover Tennessee Trails and Byways Program. It officially kicked off in May 2012 and covers 282-miles showcasing 130 points of interest including historic sites, restaurants, music, and art attractions.

This trail begins in Gatlinburg at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Welcome Center. From there it leads visitors to 130

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

stops by way of a counterclockwise loop through Sevierville, Knoxville, Lenoir City Maryville, Wears Valley, and Pigeon Forge.

First-time visitors will take note of some of the “must see” attractions like the Titanic Museum and Dollywood in Pigeon Forge and Ripley’s Aquarium in Gatlinburg, but the trail also offers some surprises for regular travelers as well as locals.

Stock car racing has played a longstanding part in the history of Bristol, Tenn. PHOTO COURTESY OF TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

Sunny Side: Early Country Trail tntrailsandbyways.com/trail/3/sunny-side-trail/ The Sunny Side Trail covers some of the same ground as The Rocky Top Trail as it moves through Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, but the 475-mile route also winds its way through many northeast Tennessee communities including Newport, Greeneville, Jonesborough, Johnson City, Elizabethton, Bristol, and others.

Trail organizers named this loop after the song Keep on the Sunny Side of Life. “It came from the northeast portion of Tennessee,” Jones said. “The northeast is also where settlers began coming in, so it’s called Sunny Side, Early Country Trail.”

The trail begins at the Sevierville Visitor Center and winds its way through the northeastern part of the state. A sampling of the stops includes lodging and restaurants located on the trail, as well as such attractions as the Birthplace of County Music Museum/Culture Heritage Center in Bristol, the Erwin National Fish Hatchery which provides 10 to 14 million trout eggs to units across the nation every year, and the Mahala Mullins Cabin which was relocated from Newman’s Ridge to the Vardy Historic District.

She was one of the most famous people of the Melungeon heritage and she is known from openly selling moonshine from her log home.

White Lightning: Thunder Road to Rebels Trail tntrailsandbyways.com/trail-guides/ 16/white-lightning-trail Speaking of moonshine, the 200-mile White Lightning Trail in the Discover Tennessee Trails & Byways Program takes its name from the route’s history as a moonshinerunning corridor. During the days of the prohibition, rebels sped around the twisted roads in the dark of night to try to elude authorities as they transported their illegal, homemade corn whiskey.

There are 163 stops on this trail, which winds its way past the Tennessee, Clinch, Powell, Holston, Nolichucky, and French Broad Rivers. It also traverses part of the East Tennessee Crossing National Scenic Byway which as been used for centuries. It was known as the Cherokee Warriors’ Path then early settlers called it Wilderness Road. During the Civil War, it took on the name Dixie Highway and then was made famous as Thunder Road by the rebels carrying moonshine.

The beginning point of the White Lightning Trail is the Knoxville Visitor’s Center on Historic Gay Street. Notable stops include the Blount Mansion, which is the first frame house built west of the Appalachian Mountains in 1792, Norris Dam and Lake, and the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.

WWW.SMLIV.COM

Retrace the tracks of more infamous travelers on the White Lightning Trail.

PHOTO COURTESY OF TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

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The last scream of the Creeper Memories of the Virginia-Carolina Railroad

BY ANNA OAKES

Railroads did not barrel into the Appalachians until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But when they did, communities lying in the path of the locomotives were dramatically transformed, and mountain people suddenly found themselves living in a new age of economic opportunity. Nearly overnight, 40

mountain hamlets and enclaves became bustling little towns.

Twisting from Abingdon, Va., to Elkland, N.C., was the Virginia-Carolina Railway, nicknamed the “Virginia Creeper” for its slow crawl up steep mountain grades. Though its trains long ago came screeching to a halt, signs of the railroad’s arrival—and its absence—are enduring, lingering in old bridges, artifacts, and, for a little while longer, living memory.

Above: Without a doubt, “Old Maude bows to the Virginia Creeper” is Winston Link’s most popular photo made during daylight hours. Although many of Link’s photos were carefully set up, old Maude, with her sledge load of oak stovewood, just happened along as the train was approaching, and Link took advantage of the situation. He asked brothers Gene and Roy Hampton, who were hauling the wood to the family’s farm nearby, to wait a few minutes for the train. Maude is remembered for her gentleness and patience, but she was growing restless and began to bob her head as the train arrived.

COURTESY OF THE O. WINSTON LINK MUSEUM, ROANOKE, VA. COPYRIGHT CONWAY LINK

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

“This

train was unusual because very few trains Lynchburg to Bristol in the 1880s, when developer John were freight and passenger trains,” said Imboden, a former Confederate general, set his sights on the John Ashburn, whose family roots in Todd date back to 1870. small community of Mock’s Mill. He and others bought up The Creeper departed Abingdon, Va., with freight to be land in anticipation of a new railroad coming from Abingdon delivered at stops along the line including hardware, shoes, to this soon-to-be-great-city in the Iron Mountains, where clothing for department stores, dry goods, farm supplies, and Imboden believed stores of iron ore lay waiting to be other commodities. A baggage car would carry suitcases, unearthed. The railroad would change hands and names a bags of mail from the postmaster, and some freight as well. couple of times before becoming the Virginia-Carolina “The conductor helped the passengers into the wooden Railway Company under the control of W.E. Mingea. coaches, the varnished interiors illuminated by the soft glow of the oil lamps that hung form the ceilings of the clerestory roofs,” writes author Doug McGuinn, who has penned several books about railroads in the region. “Rambunctious children, farm wives in cotton print dresses, and scruffy men in dirty bib overalls filed down the narrow aisles, along with the confident gentlemen in top hats, long-tailed coats, and stiff-collared shirts; and urbane ladies, who wore hoop skirts, lace blouses that covered slim arms and slender necks, highlaced shoes, and big hats decorated with ostrich feathers.”

The seats in the coach car were upholstered—with red plush, said one source—but often dirty, stained by the cinders of the steam engine’s coal furnace, remembered Eleanor Greer, 87, of the Green Cove community in Washington County, Va. That didn’t Inside the Green Cove store, passengers await the arrival of the Creeper. W.M. Buchanan puts up a grocery order bother most folks. “We didn’t dress up while others converse across the room. COURTESY OF THE O. WINSTON LINK MUSEUM, ROANOKE, VA. COPYRIGHT CONWAY LINK back then; we just wore our regular old clothes. We didn’t have anything, and we weren’t going anywhere that we really had to dress At the turn of the century, the first leg of the new railroad up,” Greer recalled. She rode the train to see family members was complete. Abingdon became a thriving city, “a railroad in Whitetop and Abingdon, and once to West Jefferson with center and junction point,” writes McGuinn. In 1911, her sister to have her tonsils taken out at the hospital. The according to McGuinn’s research, the Norfolk & Western train carried her husband home safely from World War II. Railway Company bought up 50 percent interest in the “One day I looked out as the train came up, and I saw him Virginia-Carolina, and the line extended to Creek standing up on the back of the last car,” she said.

Junction—near the Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina borders.

The difficult and dangerous labor of extending the railroad line through wild terrain continued, mostly at the hands of THROWING DOWN THE TRACKS black men and immigrants, with white foremen, and dirt and Abingdon, a town in Washington County in southwestern rock transported by mules, remembered Charles King and Virginia, was already a stop along a railroad line from Albert Cooper, two Ashe County, N.C., men whom Dr.

“Since the scream of the locomotive broke the silence of those peaceful surroundings a little more than three week ago, the modest little hamlet has taken on new life,” — Watauga Democrat, June 24, 1915

WWW.SMLIV.COM

41

“Although the mineral wealth Gen. Imboden dreamed of was never realized, the wealth of timber on the mountainsides was. The timber brought northern capital rushing in. Lumber companies, extract companies, and leather companies followed.”

— Doug McGuinn, author of several books about railroads in the region

Sawmills and lumber yards sprang up all along the route of the Virginia-Carolina/Abingdon Branch railroad, including the Blue Ridge Lumber Company, pictured here in Elkland, N.C. The Todd Mercantile store is visible in the background.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JIM LEWIS

Todd’s General Store (formerly Cook Brothers Store) and Todd Mercantile were bustling centers of trade and social life during the days of the railroad. ANNA OAKES PHOTO

Robert S. Jones interviewed in the 1970s.

Shacks built along the New River housed the laborers as construction trudged onward toward Todd, located near the southern border of North Carolina’s most northwestern county. News of the coming railroad regularly occupied the Todd community column in the Watauga County newspaper, The Watauga Democrat. “The Callahan Construction Co. which has just completed the grading of a section of the V.C.R.R. through the Beaver Creek country is erecting camps at J.C. Kirders, 1 1/4 miles below Todd‌preparatory to beginning work on the section from McGuire to Todd,â€? stated the column in the July 2, 1914, edition. “Todd Mercantile Co. has built an addition to their already commodious store and have painted it, which gives it the appearance of a city store. McGuire Bros. & Co. our other merchants have also been repairing and painting their store and dwelling which adds much to its appearance.â€?

Dr. Jones’ chronicle of the railroad, a ďŹ vepage typewritten account published in 1975 and titled “The Abingdon Branch: Recollections of the Early Days of a Railroad

Era,� contains a number of remembrances from the old-timers of the day, including Mr. Clyde Ray, a resident of the Brownwood community who helped build the railroad. “He and his son who lives nearby, standing in the backyard of the Ray farm, pointed to the hillside where a few stumps remained,� wrote Jones. Giant white pines were cut from the hill and hauled away, recounted Mr. Ray’s son, and in their absence, “stumps stood like warts on the hillside�—stumps almost as big as a house, he said.

CUTTING TREES, GROWING TOWNS With the 76.5 miles of standard gauge rail and 108 bridges, the train’s arrival in Todd brought change. “Since the scream of the locomotive broke the silence of those peaceful surroundings a little more than three week ago, the modest little hamlet has taken on new life,� reads the June 24, 1915, edition of the “Locals from Todd� column in the Democrat. “It brought a lot of prosperity to Todd.

People had money in their pockets; it made some people quite well off. They could read books; they had time to get educated. “We were bigger than Boone at that time.�

And with the change in conditions came a change in name. Todd was no more. “The railroad gave it the name Elkland,�

Ashburn said.

It seems it was common practice for the railroad or other developers to rename villages, towns, and communities as they pleased. Near Whitetop, Va., the Hassinger Lumber Company selected the locale of Azen for its new bandmill, renaming it Konnarock, historian T.H. Blevins wrote in “A Brief History of the ‘Virginia Creeper.’� A two-mile extension connected Konnarock to the main Virginia-Carolina line at the Creek Junction depot. Mock’s Mill would become Damascus, christened by Gen. Imboden after Damascus, Syria, which was “world famous centuries earlier for the superiority of its iron sword manufacturing,� noted Blevins.

As it would turn out, the “Iron Mountains� of Damascus, Va., would not yield any Story continues, page 46

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ANNA OAKES PHOTOS

The George L. Carter Railroad Museum The George L. Carter Railroad Museum is devoted to the region’s railroad history and features several large layouts of towns and landscapes with running model trains as well as railroad-related items of historical and cultural interest. The museum focuses on three railroads that crisscrossed the area: the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina (“Tweetsie”) the Southern (now Norfolk Southern), and Clinchfield (now CSX).

George L. Carter built the Clinchfield Railroad through 275 miles of mountain terrain to carry coal from Eastern Kentucky. In 1909, when a state committee visited the area while searching for a site for a proposed teachers college, Carter offered his 120-acre farm and $100,000 toward the establishment of the school, which became ETSU. Fred Alsop, a biology professor and president of the local Mountain Empire Model Railroaders, serves as the director of the railroad museum. He joined the club about 15 years ago.

“I’ve always had an George L. Carter Railroad Museum interest in trains,” he 113 Campus Center Building said. “I enjoy building Johnson City, Tenn. the layouts and the 423.439.3382 scenery—that’s the Open Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. thing I enjoy.”

The Carter Railroad Museum’s three permanent model railway layouts include a G (large) scale layout, a 44-feet-by-24-feet HO scale (medium size) layout created by members of the railroad club, and a 23-feet-by12-feet N (small) scale layout donated by Ms. Marian Bankus of Knoxville. The railroad club has worked at its HO layout for years, and it remains a perpetual work in progress.

“Some folks say model railroads are never finished,” said Alsop.

“Every member had a part of it.” The club is currently at work on a

go visit

44

“Some folks say model railroads are never finished.”

— Fred Alsop, Mountain Empire Model Railroaders president

fourth layout—a 1,300-square-foot replica of the Tweetsie Railroad line. Using archival photos and oral histories as a reference, the club strives to make the layouts as historically accurate as possible. “The Tweetsie layout has nine sections under development that are each approximately 20 feet long. In order to have sufficient funds for the completion of the layout, the Carter RR Museum is seeking sponsors for each of these nine sections,” Alsop wrote in the January 2013 newsletter of the Railroaders club.

Also featured at the museum are artifacts and memorabilia from the railroad, including lanterns and hardware, photographs, and a library with about 900 volumes on railroads. Some displays are changed on a regular basis, and a regional railroad is highlighted once a month. A Little Engineer’s Room is provided for children, with wooden train toys and other activities. Some families come every Saturday, Alsop noted.

Some visitors to the museum share their own memories of the area’s railroads. Students in ETSU’s graduate storytelling program conduct interviews to capture oral histories for the museum’s collection. “We try to get contact information for a lot of them that have good stories—we follow up on those,” Alsop said.

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sale on the front page of the significant iron deposits after June 24, 1915, Watauga all, but that was no matter, Democrat, proclaiming in because the mountains’ new large type, “This is the most riches would be found above beautiful site for a city or ground. town on V.C. Railroad.

“Although the mineral Riverside will be the wealth Gen. Imboden shipping point for half the dreamed of was never realized, people in Watauga County. the wealth of timber on the Get in on the ground floor mountainsides was. The and be the first one to make timber brought northern money out of real estate at capital rushing in. Lumber Riverside.” A brass band was companies, extract companies, to perform at the auction. and leather companies followed,” wrote McGuinn.

The Hassinger Lumber Company factored LINKED UP significantly in the operations Train depots were of the Virginia-Carolina, community centers. The which by 1919 had become Green Cove station received part of the Norfolk & Western passengers and freight from Railroad and was designated the train and operated a as the Abingdon Branch. The grocery store and post office. passenger and freight trains of “The lady that lived in the the Abingdon Branch shared community at the Green the track with the Hassinger Cove depot—the men that log trains. worked on the train would “During [Hassinger’s] usually call and let them operation from 1906 to the day The Riverside Restaurant in the Brownwood area stands alone as a relic from the onceknow if they wanted her to before Christmas 1928, the thriving community that grew around the train depot. Built in 1918 by the R.T. Greer pack them a lunch,” Greer average daily capacity was Company, this building was a handling and warehouse facility for roots and herbs gathered from the mountains. After being baled, they were shipped on the Virginia said. Community members 75,000 board feet with a one Creeper to destinations around the world eager for the healing qualities of the native brought items to the train day maximum of 92,000 plants of the Appalachians. The community never rebuilt after being destroyed by the stations to trade, such as board feet of hemlock. flood of 1940. SARAH E. KUCHARSKI PHOTO chickens, cattle, sheep, Between 15 and 18 million cheeses, animal pelts, board feet of lumber were The railroad’s decision to bypass Jefferson, ginseng, and minerals. Ashburn’s grandfather, created annually from roughly 30,000 acres of the county seat of Ashe County, N.C., led to John Cox, operated the Todd Mercantile. “He timber. This represents a total of 325 million the establishment of West Jefferson. When traded things like chestnuts, had a big bin for board feet of lumber from a single mill, not the engine steamed into the fledgling town in chestnuts, shipped the chestnuts out up counting the thousands of cords of pulp 1914, “land offices, lumber companies, banks north,” Ashburn said. “People in New wood, tanning bark, mine props, crossties, and other businesses that would be catering to England had a love affair with chestnuts. and chestnut poles,” Blevins said. the rail traffic had already started elbowing Around here we just fed them to the hogs.”

The company and its associated logging each other for space beside the tracks,” Riding the train was relatively affordable, activities employed hundreds of workers, McGuinn noted. and gave community members a chance to provided free electricity in Konnarock from 5 In the community of Riverside (also experience new things. Danford Phillips, 97, a a.m. to 11 p.m., hired the first doctors, and known as Brownwood), an auction company native of Whitetop, which had no hair salon opened the first schools. Commerce flourished advertised business and residential lots for at the time, would board the train to get a around every train stop, creating new towns. permanent in a neighboring town. “It made two trips a day,” Phillips said. “That was our transportation back then.”

Boarding houses opened near each stop to host traveling passengers and businessmen.

“For a quarter a night, you got a bed and a meal,” Ashburn says. “The old hotel didn’t have a lot of room. The thing about the hotel— and I always laughed at this—you sometimes had to sleep in bed with somebody you didn’t know. Some people didn’t take a bath that — John Ashburn, Todd, N.C. often.” Ashburn’s uncle, John Cox Jr., ran away

“For a quarter a night, you got a bed and a meal.

The old hotel didn’t have a lot of room. The thing about the hotel—and I always laughed at this—you sometimes had to sleep in bed with somebody you didn’t know.

Some people didn’t take a bath that often.”

46

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

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“I can’t describe it. It was a whistle that we got so used to, when it all quit, we really missed it.’

— Eleanor Greer, 87, resident of the Green Cove community in Washington County, Va.

Rail excursions Great Smoky Mountains Railroad Norfolk and Western left a caboose in Todd when it pulled out in 1933, said John Ashburn: “All the kids played in that caboose when we were growing up.” In Todd, drivers pass by this engine and caboose from the old “Virginia Creeper” on Railroad Grade Road. ANNA OAKES PHOTO

on the train after being expelled from school, hoboing for years all across the country. “He left Todd on that train and went all over the United States,” Ashburn said. He was robbed in New York City; he worked on ranches out west. When a railroad detective was on patrol, he hid by riding under the bottom of the train. In the heat of Arizona and Texas, he sometimes rode atop the boxcars.

“He had a lot of adventures. He was a real character of a fellow,” Ashburn said.

TRACKS, TRESTLES, TOWNS— WASHED AWAY Flooding of the New River remained a constant threat to the railroad line, and as the driving lumber industry continued to denude slopes of timber and other vegetation, the dangers only intensified.

“By definition, ‘virgin timber’ does not last forever, and logging practices of the day 48

With 53 miles of track, two tunnels and 25 bridges, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad explores the river gorges and valleys of Western North Carolina’s mountains. The Railroad offers a variety of scenic, round-trip excursions departing from Bryson City.

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The Nantahala Gorge Excursion travels 44 miles to the Nantahala Gorge and back again, across the Little Tennessee and Nantahala Rivers and Fontana Lake into the Nantahala Gorge.

The Tuckasegee River Excursion travels 32-mile roundtrip along the Tuckasegee River through old railroad towns and scenic meadows. Specialty excursions are available throughout the year. gsmr.com or 800.872.4681.

The Secret City Scenic Excursion Return to the heyday of passenger railroading with the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum’s Secret City Scenic Excursion Train in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Trains depart from the Heritage Center, an historic Department of Energy facility where research and development plunged the United States into the Atomic Age. The train winds along Poplar Creek and Highway 327 in the beautiful hills and valleys of East Tennessee.

Each round trip travels approximately 14 miles and lasts about one hour.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

Vintage 1950s Alco diesel locomotives pull the trains. Seating is in an airconditioned coach and a dining car, both restored from the 1940’s era of passenger railroading.

The train usually runs on the first and third Saturday of each month from April-September. In February, March, November, and December, the train will run on Saturdays and Sundays of selected weekends, usually around holidays.

Ticket prices are $19 for adults and $15 for children 12 and under. Note that due to federal Department of Energy regulations, non-U.S. citizens are required to provide passport and visa information prior to boarding the train, and citizens of certain nations are not permitted to ride per federal embargo. southernappalachia.railway.museum or 865.241.2140.

Three Rivers Rambler The Three Rivers Rambler remains a working line, hauling freight during the week and offering passenger excursions on special weekends.

Beginning the journey in Downtown Knoxville, the Rambler travels past historical sites to the “Three Rivers Trestle” where the French Broad and Holston Rivers join to form the Tennessee River. The 11-mile route includes beautiful farmland, Knoxville’s first settlement area, and several quarries that were mined to build our nation’s Capital. threeriversrambler.com or 865.524.9411.

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49

In the community of Fleetwood in Ashe County, N.C., three pillars stand in the South Fork New River near Railroad Grade Road. According to interviews conducted by Robert S. Jones, these pillars once supported a Hassinger Lumber Company line that spurred off of the main Abingdon Branch line and went a few miles up into the mountains. Using Shay engines (slow wood-burning locomotives used primarily for hauling logs to mills), company workers hauled timber out of the mountains to the main line, where the timber was then transported to the company’s mill in Konnarock, Virginia, near Whitetop. ANNA OAKES PHOTO

seldom considered any future management of the once cut forest,” remarked Blevins.

In 1916—only a year or so after the line was completed to Elkland—a major flood caused extensive damage along the line, wiping out nearly all its tracks and bridges. But the railroad rebuilt. The next major deluge came in 1930, halting service for six months. By this time, the Hassinger Lumber Company had closed up shop at its Konnarock mill, lumber shipments were on the decline, and the Great Depression had a callous grip on the nation’s economy. The Interstate Commerce Commission authorized the abandonment of the section of track between Elkland and West Jefferson in 1933, and the train made its final trip to Elkland in April of that year. The railroad removed the tracks, and the railroad bed became a road.

“When the train left in 1933, Todd left with it,” said Ashburn. “We never were the same.”

Then came the devastation of the 1940 flood. Heavy, unrelenting rains from a hurricane swept through the naked hillsides of the southern Appalachians. “They say for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction,” Ashburn said. “When that flood came, there was nothing to hold the soil in place, because all the lumber was gone. There was nothing to hold the rain back. It washed away two-thirds of the buildings here in Todd.

50

“They say for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. When that flood came, there was nothing to hold the soil in place, because all the lumber was gone. It washed away two-thirds of the buildings here in Todd. The same thing that the railroad brought in here—it all washed away in the flood.”

— John Ashburn, Todd, N.C.

The same thing that the railroad brought in here—it all washed away in the flood.”

It was news of the flood, in fact, that finally called John Cox Jr. home to North Carolina.

“He picked up a paper in Idaho and saw a headline that said Todd was under water,” Ashburn said. “He was afraid that his daddy and mother were in trouble.” The former hobo went back to high school, graduated, joined the Marines and eventually became a successful schoolteacher and principal.

In the 1970s, when Jones published his historical account of the Virginia Creeper, service continued from West Jefferson to Abingdon, but only once a week, on Thursdays. “At nearby Jefferson, the county seat of Ashe, hearings are being held during SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

the fall of 1975 before the Interstate Commerce Commission to request discontinuance of service by the Abingdon Branch altogether. The Norfolk and Western Railway can no longer profit from operation of the line, but many will be saddened at this passing of a railroad era,” he wrote.

The Creeper’s whistle, known for its chilling, eerie quality, sounded for the last time in 1977, and the tracks were removed that year. “I can’t describe it,” Greer remembered.

“It was a whistle that we got so used to, when it all quit, we really missed it. In recent years, at a Green Cove community festival, a man brought a whistle that replicated the sound of the Creeper train, she said: “It made you want to cry. It sounded just like it.”

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51

from the

Great Smokies Postcards helped spread the word about Smokies’ beauty, build momentum for preservation

BY ANGELA RAIMONDO ROSEBROUGH

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY/TRAVIS BUMGARDNER PHOTO ILLUSTRATION

52

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

O

f all the factors that led to the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, postcards that depicted the beauty and grandeur of the Southern Appalachians may be the most overlooked.

Now a new book, The Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Postcard History) by Adam H. Alfrey, explores this early phenomenon. Alfrey made his way through thousands of postcards in order to narrow it down to the 200 in the book. At first he remained intent on reading each of the short messages on the back of the cards, but found a similar refrain echoing over and over again.

“Everyone wants to come here, they love the mountains, they love the people and you should too,” said Alfrey.

Alfrey, the operations manager and curator of exhibitions for the East Tennessee History

Center, found that these mailbox mementos opened a window on local history. According to Alfrey’s research, the GSMNP came into existence thanks to hardworking grassroots movements, tourism—and the messages inscribed on little cards sent by post.

Photographers’ pictures, taken as part of the push to chronicle the region’s beauty and foster the creation of the GSMNP, were later featured on these postcards that tourists sent off to friends and family, highlighting great places visited on vacation. “Seventy to eighty percent of all images came from the same four photographers,” Alfrey says. “Their styles became very distinct, but many of them were not credited. Postcard makers were interested primarily in the images themselves and what it takes to sell them. In the case of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the images were

sold twice—first used to sell the idea of the park, and then turned around and used again as postcards.”

In one particular case, Alfrey discovered the exact same image twice, five years apart.

“One going to Congress, the other going to tourists,” he said. “Postcards were explicitly designed to promote tourism.”

The postcards were effective propaganda, with East Tennessee in particular becoming a favored destination. In the case of the Smokies, vacationers shared message after message depicting Southern hospitality, relaxation, and more on the backside of alluring photos and illustrations.

“Most of the correspondence was the typical ‘loving it here wish you were here,’” Alfrey said. “Many people were talking about how great it was to be in this area, what they

Visitors had expectations of

hillbillies mixed into the landscape, tribal dances and feathers at Cherokee, and moonshine stills hidden in caves.

JACK HUFF PHOTOS

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53

The Asheville Postcard Company In 1907 postal regulations began allowing what is known as divided back postcards. This small change actually served as a boom to the postcard industry. Capitalizing on this movement at the ground floor was the Asheville Postcard and Pennant Company, later known as just Asheville Postcard Company. Lamar Campbell Le Compte Sr. founded this company at the age of 21 in 1910. His line of postcards launched with 190 different picture styles. Card No. 1 is a view of Andrews Geyser near Old Fort, which served as a major landmark on the Southern Railway.

Le Compte not only had the entrepreneurial vision behind the Asheville Postcard Company, he also served as the company’s salesman, In this photo from the Asheville Citizen (now the Asheville Citizen-Times), Asheville Post Card Company founder Campbell LeCompte (left), 87, is pictured with salesman Allen Hall. The company was founded in 1910. traveling the area by train to sell his cards PHOTO BY ASHEVILLE CITIZEN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER MALCOLM GAMBLE to the same places we expect to buy them now—drug stores, souvenir shops, appealing post card view, such as a beautiful mountain scene, a five-and-tens, bookstores and gift shops. Shortly before his death picture of an attractive resort, or a view of the gorgeous in 1977, the Asheville Times published an article entitled rhododendron ....

“Campbell Le Compte’s Cards Offer Twinge of Nostalgia.” The “Many special orders are received for view cards. Cards gotten inventory for his company was estimated to be in the millions. out by the Asheville Post Card Company are so attractive that they Asheville’s newspaper, then known as The Asheville Times, create interest and admiration wherever they are seen. So much so, published a short article about the Asheville Postcard Company. that recently orders have been secured from many states in the Entitled “Post Cards are Made Locally” it ran on Aug. 24, 1936.

Union and even foreign places. Several orders and inquiries recently Below are excerpts from that article: received from points outside the U.S.A. include several places in Canada, Alaska, Cuba, Bahama Islands and a few days ago an “The Asheville Post Card Company ... began in a modest way by order was received from Calcutta, India .... Folders are salable also publishing around fifty different views of Asheville and Western and aid, too, in promoting the beauties of our mountain scenery North Carolina .... During this time, quite a few million cards have and as in post cards, a good assortment helps the sale of those. been sold to dealers. The sale of these cards has aided materially in Asheville Post Card Company carries in stock continually over a bringing tourists and visitors to the ‘Land of Sky.’ Many hundreds of dozen different folders of this section.” people are brought here annually because of receiving an

were seeing in the park, where they were staying, what they were eating, etc.”

Historians value postcards’ role in depicting the landscape of years gone by. Entire books are dedicated to viewing them and the portrait they paint of society. They preserve towns and landscapes at a particular moment in their progress. This type of communication has a colorful history. Begun in Europe during the mid-1800s these innovative mailings found their way to America shortly after. For 20 years, from 1873 to 1898, the U.S. Postal Service made postcards exclusively. The US. Postal Service would not accept “souvenir cards” in the system until Congress passed the Private Mailing Card Act. Regulations continued to evolve for the next several years, including where messages could be written, 54

mandating a white border to save ink during wartimes, and even how the term “postcard” could be used. The development of the American roadway system, the creation of national landmarks, parks, and pop culture were all artfully depicted and mailed around the world.

Visitors to the Smokies region had expectations of hillbillies mixed into the landscape, tribal dances and feathers at Cherokee, and moonshine stills hidden in caves. Early postcards spread these images of Southern Appalachian culture around the country. Partly because those stereotypes were so highly propagated, attractions highlighting these images started popping up from enterprising communities.

But visitors also wrote home remarking on SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

Alfrey's book contains modern photographs of buildings depicted in decades-old postcards, like this then-andnow look at an isolated mountain cabin.

DONATED PHOTO

the hospitality of the mountain people as often as they marveled over the splendor of the mountain views. Most everyone had the same stories, Alfrey found. While doing his research, he did come across one piece from a private collector that proved to be a mystery. “It read, ‘Sally, I received your letter of last week. No, I will never do you as wrong as you have done me. Sarah.’”

This cryptic message was sent from Gatlinburg to Newport. “I tried and tried to figure out the story here, but couldn’t. I figure it’s probably one of the 3Ms—men, money, or moonshine,” Alfrey said.

Since the idea of creating the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was so closely tied to the promise of tourism, the fact that people loved their time here was good news. Alfrey writes in his book, “By the 1920s, the promise of a regional tourist boom was being used as a selling point for the establishment of a new national park. That was an important development. For the first time, Americans—and especially, East Tennesseans and Western North Carolinians—were thinking of national parks as an enterprise or ... as a means to ‘profit by them.’” Profit in this sense did not mean financial profit, rather that many sojourners stayed on permanently because of the physical and emotional health benefits they found here.

Their campaign worked. By the 1950s, more than 2 million people visited the Smokies annually. Alfrey highlights one such visitor, a woman named Edna, “Who on Sunday, June 4, 1950, sent a postcard of the iconic 6,593-foot Mount Le Conte from Gatlinburg, Tenn., to Saint Paul, Minn. On the back she wrote, ‘Heavenly days!! Beauty beyond words to express in this ... Smoky Nat’l Park .... Begin the 1,000 mile trip home tomorrow.” Like the one Edna chose for her friends, early postcards of the Great Smoky Mountains often capitalized on the range’s scenic grandeur.”

As people came looking for the stereotypes highlighted on some of those early postcards, entire tourist industries popped up, giving them what they wanted while simultaneously feeding into the stereotype of gun-toting hillbillies.

“All of the parks out west were set aside for

preservation purposes,” explains Alfrey. “But over time people were drawn here for tourism, and these resort communities grew up around the park. A lot of scholars think—and I agree with them—that one of the biggest factors that kept the movement going here was the promise of that tourism boom.”

It was much easier to preserve parklands out West in areas such as Yellowstone. “But getting park land in this area was a different story,” states the National Park Service in recalling how the Smokies came to be. “The land that became Great Smokies National Park was owned by hundreds of small farmers and a handful of large timber and paper companies. The farmers did not want to leave

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their family homesteads, nor did the large corporations want to abandon huge forests of timber, many miles of railroad track, extensive systems of logging equipment, and whole villages of employee housing.”

Alfrey notes that, “When the National Park Service began working the land that would become Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the early 1930s, it was estimated that fewer than 200,000 tourists made their way into the mountains. By 1940, the year President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his September 2 speech dedicating the park ‘to the free people of America,’ that number had grown exponentially to 1,247,019. By 1950, Great Smoky Mountains National Park visitation exceeded two million.”

Many early postcards featured roads because the highway movement was such a big development. Walter M. Cline, a photographer from Chattanooga, often included roads in his images. “Cline wanted to include pictures of the roads so that people traveling from other parts of the country could see that the mountains were easily accessible and that we had roads,” Alfrey said.

“In 1968, National Geographic dubbed the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as ‘drive-in nature,’ observing only six percent of visitors leave their cards and take to the trails,” Alfrey says. And it is still that way. Not only is the GSMNP the most visited park in the country, it is also the most polluted park because of all the car traffic. Even today, many motorists would rather enjoy the only the splendor of the park visible from inside their cars.

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A DVERT ISING SEC T IO N

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The Historic Hendersonville area has been a popular vacation destination for over a century. Hendersonville is located in Western North Carolina, 22 miles south of Asheville, in the Blue Ridge Mountains on a plateau, 2200 feet above sea level. Explore the waterfalls in Dupont State Recreational Forest, the Carl Sandburg Home, Flat Rock Playhouse, historic sites, recreation, family activities, historic districts, festivals, shopping and a variety of accommodations, and restaurants.

Drop by the Visitors Information Center, located at 201 South Main Street, for a complimentary copy of the Discover Hendersonville Vacation Planner, area brochures and maps. Or call 800828-4244 for your free Vacation Plan-

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ner. Office hours 9-5 Monday through Friday and 10-5 Saturday, Sundays & Holidays. Closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year’s Day.

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MORE INFO: historichendersonville.org 800-828-4244 SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

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Pointing THE

way

Bent trees guided Cherokee over ancient trails B Y PA U L C L A R K

Bent trees found throughout the southeast are believed to have ties to ancient Cherokee thoroughfares, giving directions or indicating locations for shelter and fresh water. DONATED PHOTO

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

now Pennsylvania and New York, at times saw huge detachments of Cherokee warriors racing off to fight their foes, the Iroquois, in the north. A major trail out of the Charleston, S.C., area into northwest South Carolina’s Oconee County and Western North Carolina allowed Cherokee traders to brings goods back from the coast.

Bronze from Michigan and shells from Florida have been found at Cherokee sites in Alabama, undoubtedly carried there in the animal skin bags of Native Americans hoping to bring home items equally as exotic. Wells, whose research on Indian trees and trails has taken him throughout the country, once was in a Colorado town in the high desert of the Ute nation when someone approached him and an archeologist with an arrowhead made out of dark black rock. The archeologist looked at the artifact and said it wasn’t made out of local material, Wells remembers. It likely came from far away, carried along an Indian trail by someone from another tribe. That trail may well have been marked by rock cairns or bent trees.

“In the 1600s to 1800s, there was no sextant that the Cherokee could use when they traveled,” Wells said.

“How could they go hundreds of miles and come back to their villages? They had to have had some methodology to do this. They looked for signs that would guide them.”

Called signal trees, prayer trees and thong trees elsewhere in the country, they may have been called another name by the ancient Cherokee, but Wells doesn’t know what that name is. “When we interviewed the elders, they called them ‘the bent trees,’” he said.

The Cherokee left no written record of the trail trees, which they considered sacred, nor did they talk about them with white people because they wanted to protect the trees and they distrusted the colonizers, Wells said. This distrust was earned, as disease wiped out ninety percent of the Native American population after Columbus and the Europeans landed in the New World. Exploitation and massacres further reduced their numbers.

From the late 1800s to mid 1900s, in an attempt to assimilate the Cherokee into white culture, Indian children were taken from their parents, sent to boarding schools and forbidden to speak their own language. These children returned to the reservations resolved that their own children would not go through the same horrors, Wells said. Consequently, there is a generation gap in Cherokee knowledge and lore.

“We’ve talked to several people who said their parents didn’t talk to them about this,” Wells said. “Now they’re trying to get it back. When you’ve lost elders, you lose the culture.”

undreds of years before a network of highways and interstates crisscrossed the country, a system of trails connected the Cherokee to Indians throughout the nation.

Marking those trails were oddities that hikers may still come across on their treks in the woods—trees whose trunks run low along the ground before shooting upward again.

Researchers believe the Cherokee shaped the trees to form a system of signs pointing to things that hunters, gatherers and warriors needed on journeys that could entail hundreds of miles.

Called by names that include “bent,” “yoke” and “marker” trees, the survivors are now two or more centuries old. Many are dying, including some scarred with Cherokee carvings, lending urgency to a project attempting to catalog them before they’re gone. Adding mystery to the endeavor is that many of the trees that would seem to qualify may be, in fact, only freaks of nature.

A nationwide mapping effort now has 1,985 trees in 40 states in its database. The Trail Tree Project, organized by Mountain Stewards, has associations with tribes throughout the country, including the Comanche, the Senecas, the Muscogee and the Osage. In the Southeast, project researchers have had several interviews with Cherokee elders and examined 200-year-old maps that indicate, among other things, that U.S. 441 over Newfound Gap may be on top of an old Cherokee trail.

Don Wells is president of Mountain Stewards, a Georgiabased nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving traditional trails in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

Mountain Stewards is working to learn more about the history of the bent trees and, with Wild South, a regional conservation organization, it is working to map the Indian trails in the Southeast, some marked by the crooked trees.

NETWORK OF TRAILS Native Americans used an extensive network of trails to trade and make war among themselves and with settlers who coveted their lands. Like today’s interstate system, the network ran north to south, east to west. The Warrior Trail, a famous Cherokee trail that ran from Georgia to what is

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“Bending a tree to show which way to go, it’s not like carving a giant sign in the mountain side—it’s altering nature by working with it.”

— Barbara Duncan, Museum of the Cherokee Indian education director

The locations of marker trees are commonly kept secret today, to prevent vandalism and also to protect the tree’s surroundings. DONATED PHOTO

Trail trees have been found as far west as Utah. They’ve been located in Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. But the greatest concentration of discoveries that Mountain Stewards has catalogued has been in Cherokee lands in the Southeast, most notably in the borderlands where Georgia and North and South Carolina come together.

The Cherokee used young poplars and supple white and red oaks, species that can live hundreds of years. Saplings would be bent parallel to the ground and tied down, the crook sometimes being formed with a yoke or Y-shaped branch. A year or so later, the trees would be trained upward and tied off so that the leader pointed upward. If a branch or shoot had begun growing vertically, the leader would be cut off, creating a “nose” that is one of the bent tree’s distinctive features.

The trees and the trails they marked were as informative to the Cherokee as GPS devices are to us today, Wells said. The trails took hunters to fields and forests that were rich in game, sometimes on journeys that lasted months and took them far from their villages.

Closer to home, the trails guided women into the woods to collect edible plants and 60

document a tree:

Know of a “bent” tree that may qualify? Anyone can submit a tree online for consideration and possible inclusion by going to mountainstewards.org/project/internal_index.html.

medicinal barks. Children scampered down them in search of playmates and firewood.

The Cherokee pointed the trees in specific directions for a variety of reasons, and trying to discern what they point to presents Wells and other researchers with some of their biggest challenges. Some bent trees point toward known Indian settlements, burial sites and artifacts, but others point toward destinations unknown. Trees on ridge-top trails may have guided hunters toward water sources that weren’t visible, researchers believe. Others may have directed scouting and war parties toward shelter and stream crossings. Warriors pursued by Indian fighters and U.S. troops might have looked for trees that pointed toward caves where they could hide.

Researchers know that Daniel Boone and other pioneers followed Cherokee trails deep SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

into the wilderness. Nearly two decades before the American Revolution, British troops widened some of these trails so their horses could pull cannons to Fort Loudoun, in what is now Monroe County, Tenn. In 1813 the Unicoi Trail, which the Cherokee used from east Tennessee to north Georgia to interact with the Creek Indians, was opened to settlers’ wagons, becoming a toll road about six years later.

Cherokee trails linked villages and settlements for gatherings both social and ceremonial. Each fall, Indians in WNC walked along them to Kituwa, an ancient settlement or “mother town” between Cherokee and Bryson City, N.C., for the Green Corn ceremony to give thanks for the corn harvest, said Barbara R. Duncan, education director at the Museum of the

Cherokee Indian in Cherokee. She is coauthor of The Cherokee Heritage Trails Guidebook, which purposefully does not include the location of trail trees. “All it takes is one vandal, and this incredible, historical tree is gone,” she said.

Duncan said she sees the trees often when she hikes in the woods, but whether they were shaped by man or by nature is often hard to tell. “It’s a murky subject,” said local heritage consultant Tom Hatley. The shape of the trees may be just the result of gravity— and man’s desire to find spiritual significance in an earthly existence. “Trees grow in ways for us to give meaning to them, but there’s no doubt that people marked these trails in different ways,” Hatley said. “We just don’t see these things. There’s this whole cultural fabric in our landscape that is invisible.”

Hand of man or freak of nature? “That’s the big question,” said Lamar Marshall, cultural heritage director of Wild South, a nonprofit organization that works to protect the public lands and biodiversity of public lands in the South. “If they are young trees, maybe a tree fell on them and bent them. But these are older trees, some of them very venerable, ancient trees. I’ve seen beech trees bent like this, and they live 400, 500 years.”

Wells said some of the Cherokee elders he talked to don’t believe in marker trees. Tommy Cabe, the environmental preservation and planning officer for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, heard about trail trees when he was in forestry school. He said he sees bent trees “all the time” when he’s in the woods, but whether they were altered by hand or by accident is hard to say. They might have been bent by small earthquakes that altered their root systems, he said. “That’s not to say bending trees isn’t true,” he added. “The Cherokees’ means of travel and navigation were pretty ingenious for the time.”

Duncan has reviewed colonial military documents that suggest Cherokee soldiers could run the Warrior Trail into Pennsylvania in five days, averaging at least 100 miles a day.

One historical record from the 1750s that Duncan reviewed stated that Cherokee warriors were in Maryland, ready for battle, within days of being summoned by the British, who wanted help in their fight against the French. The British commander marveled that the warriors had arrived far earlier than British troops garrisoned not far away.

About the only way to ascertain whether trees might have been shaped by hand is to drill into the core. Counting the rings reveals whether it was growing before the first known incursions by non-Indian people, Wells said.

Don Wells, president of Georgia-based nonprofit Mountain Stewards, stands with the Mueller Tree. Mountain Stewards is working to learn more about marker trees and Indian trails throughout the Southeast. DONATED PHOTO

But corings often yield incomplete records because the trees die from the inside out, creating a rotten center that yields gaps in the historical record. Taping into the bud of a branch also skews the results, as does passing through sections of decay. Some property owners don’t want their trees cored, and some don’t allow testing because they don’t want to believe that they have Indian relics on their land, Wells said.

People have guided the researchers to some of the trees, including one, forked into the shape of a football goalpost, that marks the site of a legendary battle between the Creek and Chickasaw Indians in what is now the Bankhead National Forest, Ala. A couple of years ago, Marshall and Wells were mapping two crooked trees north of Franklin when a woman came rolling down the road in her wheelchair. She told them there used to be a bent tree in her driveway that was part of an Indian trail. That tree and the trees they were mapping were part of an old Cherokee trading route that appeared on maps dating back to the 1720s, Marshall said.

Unlike the trees, the record of the Cherokee trails is well established, and Marshall and Wells are using it to help map the Cherokee Trails Project, an ambitious effort funded by the Eastern Band to find and mark ancient trails that the Cherokee used to WWW.SMLIV.COM

move around in and venture forth from the Appalachian Mountains.

FINDING THE WAY WildSouth and Mountain Stewards began work in 2009, searching for trails in Western North Carolina, particularly within the Qualla Boundary, as well as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The team of half a dozen people, led by Marshall and Wells, pulled old maps of land that the state of Georgia and the federal government confiscated from the Cherokee before forcing them to lands west of the Mississippi. The maps, which marked the locations of Indian trails, included land lottery surveys done in Georgia between 1805-1832 and government land surveys done in northeast Alabama between 1820-1840.

The team also used a map that civil engineer Henry Mouzon created of North and South Carolina just before the start of the American Revolution, as well as trail data reported in the late 1830s by an Army lieutenant with the last name of Williams.

Williams surveyed Indian trails in Clay and Cherokee counties in North Carolina, as well as elsewhere in the state and in Georgia.

Over the course of three years, Williams noted the location of each Cherokee family along 61

Marker trees sometimes appear in pairs. Many contemporary roadways follow the ancient Indian trails. DONATED PHOTO

the trails—information Wells believes was later used to round up the last of the Cherokee (those who hadn’t hidden) for the forced march to Oklahoma, a tragic journey along a route commonly known as the Trail of Tears. Clusters of trail trees have been found in Arkansas, on reservation land the federal government established for the Cherokee once they had been forced from their homeland in the Southeast.

Using the old maps and surveys, as well as Google Earth and a discipline called “georeferencing,” Wells and Marshall walked suspected trails on state and national property, using a GPS device to compare position points along the trails to the old maps and the data extracted through Google Earth. If they had a match, they validated the trail.

In that way, they documented 153 miles of old Cherokee trails on public land, as well as other miles on land held by the Eastern Band, which now has their findings. Of the 153 miles, about 50 are in Western North Carolina, Wells said, but few are open to the public. The 1.6-mile graveled path that runs along the Oconaluftee River at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park visitors center near Cherokee is associated with what was once the Indian Gap Trail that went over Newfound Gap to Gatlinburg, Tenn. In South 62

Carolina, one 3.5-mile stretch of Cherokee trail exists along the Winding Stairs trail over Oconee Mountain in Sumter National Forest.

Many of the old Cherokee trails have become WNC’s roads, Duncan said. “The Cherokee found the best way to go, the easiest, most efficient routes to travel on,” she said. “You really have to admire their understanding of geography.” Case in point is a particularly admirable bit of trail-building—what is now the road over Stecoah Gap near Robbinsville, N.C. The Cherokee excelled especially in finding the simplest routes over gaps between watersheds, Duncan said. They created a portion of what is now U.S. 19, she said, which was built upon an important trail that once connected the Tuckseegee and Pigeon River watersheds and passed Judaculla Rock, a rock bearing ancient petroglyps in the Caney Fork community outside Cullowhee, N.C. “We think of Judaculla Rock and the headwaters of the Pigeon River as being far apart, and they are if you’re driving. But if you go over the gap, it’s only about 10 miles,” Duncan said. Stretches of U.S. 441 through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Interstate 40 in Haywood County are on top of Cherokee trails, she said. The Warrior Trail is now part of Interstate 81, Wells said.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

Many of the old trails have disappeared, and many of the old trees are dead. Wells and Marshall have validated just a few of them in WNC. Two exist just off the Qualla Boundary, a little south of Cherokee. About six feet apart (and dying), the beech and oak trees point downhill toward a stream. Another one is west of Robbinsville, and there’s one near Andrews.

“Unfortunately, because of age, farming and urban development, we’ve lost a lot of them,” Wells said. He desperately wants to record the locations of the remaining trees before they’re gone. “We’re losing part of history,” he said.

“We want to tell the story of this history.”

“I’ve seen many of these trees die in my lifetime, and then there goes the record,” Marshall said. “They’ve been here for hundreds of years. So it’s very important to record and document where all these trees were so in the future, when more research is uncovered about how the Indians used these trees, there will be a record of them.”

Duncan marvels how elegantly the Cherokee created a system of trails and trail markers, all with little impact on the ground they loved so much. “Bending a tree to show which way to go, it’s not like carving a giant sign in the mountain side—it’s altering nature by working with it,” she said.

G RAHAM C OUNTY N • O • R • T • H

C • A • R • O • L • I • N • A

Snowbird Lodge

Robbinsville, North Carolina

It is difficult to know just when the Snowbird “magic” begins. For many, it starts the moment they begin to plan their trip, for others it is when they catch the first awe inspiring view of the mountains from the front porch or when they take their first bite of one of our delicious meals. Welcome to a little slice of heaven!

Robbinsville, North Carolina offers a variety of Smoky Mountain adventures and is becoming better known every year. With a natural beauty still unspoiled by crowds, it is truly a rare find in today’s busy world. Come spend the day driving the twisties, hiking at Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, Whitewater Rafting on the Cheoah River or biking our newest Santeetlah Bike Trails!

Visitors Center located on Hwy. 129/Rodney Orr Bypass 828.479.3790 • GrahamCountyTravel.com

4633 Santeetlah Rd. • Robbinsville, NC 800.941.9290 • snowbirdlodge.com

Iron Horse Motorcycle Lodge

Tail of the Dragon

Fontana Village Resort

A first class motorcycle exclusive destination surrounded by the best mountain roads in America. Located near the famous “Tail of the Dragon,” Blue Ridge Parkway, and the Cherohala Skyway.

Three of the best touring roads in America are located here. And there are more nearby!

Winter. Spring. Summer. Fall.

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W W W . G R A H A M C O U N T Y T R A V E L . C O M WWW.SMLIV.COM

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Stopping Time The Blue Ridge Parkway, a motorcycle, and eyes wide open B Y P H I L L I P S PA D E

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

t’s not easy to find a good time machine. My grandparents’ house was one. No matter what the year was outside, when I walked through the front door it was the 1930s inside. A huge painting of the Last Supper hanging on the dining room wall in the center of the small house, the ticking of the hand-wound Big Ben accentuating the silence when conversation slowed, the never changing but comfortable furniture, the always present gallon jug of Mogan David wine shared with all visitors regardless of age all took me back to my grandparents’ early adulthood as fresh immigrants. The only other time machine I’ve found that works about as well is my motorcycle when I take it up on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The two-lane road traverses the Southern Appalachian Mountains from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the North Carolina/Tennessee border through some unspoiled forest lands to the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. A rider crosses more than five mountain chains along the way, including the Blue Ridge Mountains that give the Parkway its name. Mountain crests include the highest east of the Mississippi, topping out at just over 6,000 feet. There are no billboards or shopping malls, no truck stops or stop lights.

To hustle through curves or lazily cruise— that is a question best answered by traffic flow.

Some days, say in the middle of a week when the trees have lost their leaves and the tourists have lost their interest, the road allows singleminded focus on curves, throttle twists and gear shifts. Everything else is pretty much irrelevant.

On those days the Parkway must be one of the finest motorcycle rides in the country. On other days when lazy cruising is the way to go, the Parkway still offers plenty of entertainment from ever-changing big views of mountains and sky to ever-changing little views of wild flowers and critters. These are the days, though, when you can’t get too focused on nature or you’ll run the risk of running up on a Blue-Haired Gawker starring off into the distance while encased in 4,000 pounds of steel stopped in the middle of the road around a blind curve.

Starting from the southern terminus of the Parkway just north of Cherokee, the Parkway is marked along its length by mileposts, which make locating highlights very convenient. By starting south and heading north, one counts down, rather than up. In this direction, the first 18 miles climb from around 2,000 feet, where the lush southern hardwood forest grows tall, to 5,800 feet at Waterrock Knob, where fir trees have been hardened by acid rain and the clouds often shroud the mountain in an ethereal mist.

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This section includes five of 26 unlighted Parkway tunnels. I’ve been through the Parkway’s tunnels dozens, maybe hundreds, of times, but the experience is still otherworldly. As sunlight instantly disappears into darkness, the bike seems to disappear out from under you, and you’re left flying calmly through the air unassisted. However, the engine gives voice to movement, its roar echoed and amplified. The pin-point of light from the end of the tunnel

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grows ever wider, and motorcycle and rider appear once more, suddenly as exclamation points. One wonders for a moment why people even bother with cars.

From Waterrock Knob it’s a steady ride down to Balsam Gap and back up to Richland Balsam, the highest point of the Parkway at 6,020 feet. The views stretch for miles, and shifting clouds make shadow play on the valleys below. Clouds and mountains mimic one an-

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

other, both becoming blue, and blurring the line where land and sky meet. Yet this is just one of the Parkway’s abundance of view turnouts.

Further up the road, the Pisgah Inn is perched at more than 5,000 feet and overlooks the Pisgah National Forest. The inn welcomes bikers and other visitors looking for a place to stretch their legs, grab a meal, and enjoy the view.

While it’s rare, eagles have been sighted here.

The Parkway continues on, skirting around

Asheville, N.C., passing the southwestern Visitor Center at milepost 384. Stop in for interactive displays about the Parkway’s history and check the calendar of events for the season’s sights and happenings. Spring is for wildflowers, bringing the blooms of pinky-white mountain laurel and purple rhododendron, bright orange flame azalea and eventually the red of Indian Paintbrush. During summer, the Parkway’s elevation provides a cool respite from the valley heat. Fall is when the leaves turn a myriad of colors, with the preceding weather patterns determining which species claims title of most vibrant display.

While Richland Balsam is the highest point on the Parkway, Mount Mitchell is the highest point in eastern North America at 6,684 feet.

Beware the cold. Whatever the general weather, it will be cooler up here. The average high temperature barely breaks 50 degrees. When you start to really feel the cold on a motorcycle, speed limits become far less controlling than wind chill. As the cold seeps in, it starts to make sense that speeding could be easily and cheaply controlled if the state legislature would think boldly and simply outlaw windshields for all vehicles. Subsequently outlawing jackets could lead to downsizing half of the highway patrol.

But then the crest is crossed, the muddle of hypothermia is avoided, and the urge to purge windshields passes.

Past Mitchell and near Crabtree Meadows, the Parkway leaves the Black Mountains and enters its namesake chain, the Blue Ridge Mountains, which it rides all the way to its end in Virginia. It’s up in the High Country, near the town of Blowing Rock, that the cantilevered engineering marvel, the Linn Cove viaduct, hugs the mountainside. One look at the underside explains why the viaduct, finished in 1987, was the last segment of the Parkway to be built—52 years after the scenic road was begun.

North of Boone, the topography surrounding the Parkway begins to change. The tree-covered, steep mountain sides give way to open pastures cut from mountain forests, soon followed by high-altitude, rolling Virginia farms.

The Jefferson National Forest surrounds the curiously named Peaks of Otter at milepost 86.

There’s a small lodge, historic cabin and farm, camping, hiking, fishing, and picnicking, as well as the only service station actually on the Parkway within the state of Virginia.

Like my grandparents’ home, The Parkway hasn’t seemed to change much in the many years I’ve been visiting it. In some unexplainable way it removes me from my here-and-now while focusing me on its timeless existence. If we’re lucky, it will go on forever. Unlike with people themselves, the things people build can live on if all of us take good care of them.

A sample of rides in southwest N.C. Blue Ridge Parkway The famed scenic motorway winds through the best scenery the mountains have to offer, studded with overlooks to stop and soak in the views. The section of the Blue Ridge Parkway through the Smoky Mountains — from north of Asheville all the way until the Parkway ends in Cherokee — boasts the highest elevation and most panoramic ridgelines of the 469-mile route.

Tail of the Dragon No doubt one of the most famous motorcycle routes in the world, the Tail of the Dragon offers 318 curves in 11 miles. There are plenty of great rides on roads off U.S. 129 so its best to plan your trip before you go. A great resource is tailofthedragon.com. The route is ranked No. 3 in the nation by American Motorcyclist magazine.

Cherohala Skyway Long corners and endless vistas make this sky-high road and enthusiasts dream. Serving up 60 miles of scenic, mountain cruising, the Skyway climbs to 5,400 feet from Robbinsville to Tellico Plains, Tenn.

But be prepared. There are no restrooms or gas stations along the 36-mile Skyway.

Bryson City Take U.S. 19 south to U.S. 19-74. Travel on U.S. 1974 approximately 23 miles until you arrive in Topton.

Turn north on U.S. 129, taking you 22 miles past Santeetlah Lake and across the Tennessee Line to Deal’s Gap. Turn onto the Foothills Parkway, traveling 17 miles until you intersect with U.S. 321. Take U.S. 321 through Townsend to Pigeon Forge where you will turn south on U.S. 321-441. U.S. 321-441 becomes U.S. 441 through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. After about 40 miles you’re in Cherokee, where you will pick up U.S. 19 South back to Bryson City.

Franklin Take U.S. 23-441 to U.S. 64. Travel west on U.S. 64, passing Dry Falls and Cullasaja Falls, about 20 miles until you arrive in Highlands. Continue on through Cashiers 20 miles, past Sapphire Valley. Just past Sapphire, turn onto N.C. 281 South and go 10 miles to Whitewater Falls just before the South Carolina line. Back track home or take the long way by taking U.S. 64 about 21 miles past Lake Toxaway to Brevard.

From Brevard take U.S. 276 about 22 miles to S.C. 11, which will go about 40 miles before meeting up with S.C. 183 near Walhalla. From S.C. 183 hop on North S.C. 107 leading back to Cashiers. U.S. 64 leads from Cashiers to Franklin.

Sylva Take U.S. 23-74 about 14 miles to Waynesville. Exit on to U.S. 276 South, which will intersect with Main Street. Turn right on Main Street, go to the third stoplight and turn left. Continue following U.S. 276 about 22 miles out of town until you arrive the intersection of N.C. 215 and N.C. 110, 215 turns right, 210 to your left. N.C. 215 will take you past Cold Mountain and Sunburst Trout Farms. After 18 miles N.C. 215 will meet up with the Blue Ridge Parkway (which can be taken past Tanassee Bald back to U.S. 23-74). Or continue on N.C. 215 and additional 16 miles where you intersect with U.S. 64. Turn west toward Cashiers, then take N.C. 107 north back to Sylva.

Waynesville Take Exit 24 off Interstate 40 onto N.C. 209. Travel north through Crabtree, Fines Creek and the Pisgah National Forest for approximately 36 miles until you arrive in Hot Springs. To return go back on N.C. 209, or detour on to N.C. 63 in Trust. N.C. 63 will take you about 28 miles into northwest Asheville, where you can meet up with I40 and travel about 25 miles back to Waynesville. The trip to Hot Springs will take approximately an hour.

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d i re cto r y :

SELECT LODGING

OAK HILL ON LOVE LANE BED AND BREAKFAST Awarded Best in the South by BedandBreakfast.com, Oak Hill on Love Lane features “The service and amenities of a fine hotel in the quiet comfort of a B&B.” Each luxuriously appointed room in this historic 19th century home is equipped with hypo-allergenic bedding, fine linens, fireplaces, flat screen TVs, private en-suite baths and wireless internet access. Enjoy 24hour access to the Butler Pantry, daily maid service, nightly turn-down service and a full 3-course gourmet breakfast. Within walking distance of historic downtown Waynesville.

244 Love Ln. • Waynesville, NC 888.608.7037 • oakhillonlovelane.com ANDON REID INN Experience the Smoky Mountain views from our beautifully restored 1902 home. Awarded Trip Advisor Travelers Choice Top 10 B & B in the USA for 2012.

Enjoy sumptuous breakfasts, private baths, Jacuzzis, working fireplaces, fitness studio. Our guests love our rec room with pool table and game tables. Moments away from the Blue Ridge Parkway, Pisgah National Forest, waterfalls and Asheville. Let us “wow” you!

92 Daisy Ave. • Waynesville, NC 828.452.3089 • andonreidinn.com

RESIDENCES AT BILTMORE HOTEL Ideally located between Biltmore Estate and downtown Asheville. Studio, 0ne- and two-bedroom suites available with full kitchens, fireplaces, balconies and most with whirlpool jet tubs. Property amenities include 24-hour Concierge, fitness center, heated outdoor pool, hot tub and fire-pit. Your mountain retreat in the heart of the city.

700 Biltmore Ave. • Asheville, NC 866.433.5594 • residencesatbiltmore.com THE SWAG COUNTRY INN Chosen by readers of Conde Nast Traveler magazine as the #2 Best Small Hotel in the Unites States, the secluded hideaway itself consists of 250 private acres. The main lodge and cabins, consisting of 15 rooms, are built of 17th and 18th century hand hewn logs and local field stone. Join us for our 30th season to experience just how remote, rustic, refined and remarkable it can be at 5,000 feet. 3 gourmet meals are served daily, with turn down service each evening.

800.789.7672 • theswag.com

HERREN HOUSE BED & BREAKFAST Six spacious guest rooms with sitting areas and private baths blend modern comforts and ample space with distinctive Victorian charm. Enjoy sprawling porches, an open-air gazebo, and relaxing gardens with nature’s seasonal colors. Situated only one block from Main Street Herren House offers convenience to an array of shops and dinning as well as easy access to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

94 East St. • Waynesville, NC 28786 828.452.7837 • herrenhouse.com

BAINES MOUNTAIN HIDEAWAY AND SKY COVE HIDEAWAY Choose from two luxury vacation rental cabins located in Bryson City. Both are minutes away from the Smoky Mountain Railroad, 18 holes of golf at the Smoky Mountain Country Club, Tsali mountain bike trails, Fontana Lake, Smoky Mountain National Park and the Nantahala Outdoor Center. Hiking, biking, paddling, boating, fishing, golfing ... all outdoor activities within minutes. Each cabin has 2 bedrooms, a full bathroom on each of the 3 levels, game loft with pool table, Jacuzzi bath tub, hot tub, outdoor fire pit, 2 fireplaces, 2 large decks, gas grill, satellite TV, wireless internet, mountain views ... rest and relaxation!

Bryson City, NC 877.488.8500 bainesmountainhideaway.com skycovehideaway.com

BOYD MOUNTAIN LOG CABINS AND CHRISTMAS TREE FARM Featured in 2011 Southern Living Best Weekend Getaways . Enjoy a peaceful country setting in charming authentic log cabins, 1—4 bedrooms, located on 130 beautiful acres. Full kitchens, wood burning fireplaces, Wifi, & A/C. The cabins overlook the Smoky Mountains, our Fraser Fir Christmas tree farm, 3 stocked fishing ponds ,flower and vegetable gardens.

Hiking trails to the top of Boyd Mountain, volleyball, basketball and badminton, swimming hole in the creek, sledding in the winter. Open every season.

828-926-1575 • boydmountain.com

HEMLOCK INN This historic inn, set just off Main Street in downtown Blowing Rock, is only steps from shopping, restaurants and event activities. Eighteen unique rooms, including suites with fully-equipped kitchens.

All rooms are non-smoking. Rooms feature private baths, cable TV, air conditioning, phone services, microwave ovens, refrigerators and WiFi. Take away the unnecessary stress and time spent planning your vacation by taking advantage of a variety of packages offered throughout the year.

Downtown Blowing Rock, N.C. 828.295.7987 • hemlockinn.net

HOMES YOUR GUIDE TO REAL ESTATE IN HAYWOOD COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

MAGGIE MOUNTAIN VACATIONS Maggie Mountain Vacations offers cabin rentals in the Smoky Mountains! Large or small cabins with hot tubs, views, creeks, waterfalls and privacy - anything you need for a great mountain escape - we've got you covered. Call us today or check out our website for 24/7 online booking.

213 Soco Rd. • Maggie Valley, N.C. 888.926.4270 • maggiemountainvacations.com SMOKETREE LODGE Smoketree’s cozy atmosphere and prime location allows its visitors the choice of enjoying the peace and solitude of the Blue Ridge Mountains or the opportunity of partaking in the many activities available in the High Country!

11914 NC Hwy. 105 S. • Banner Elk, NC 800.422.1880 • smoketree-lodge.com GRANDVIEW LODGE Tucked away in a mountain cove just off the beaten path near Waynesville, North Carolina, the newlyremodeled farm style home on 3 acres features 8 deluxe, country rooms with private baths. There’s also the 2-bedroom, 2-bath Grandview Cottage with full kitchen, living area and dining area. The Lodge has just introduced Popcorn's Moonshine Grill on Friday & Saturday nights from 5 til 9pm featuring a full bar, live entertainment, and an American Tapas menu featuring items such as Pig Wings, Redneck Caprese, and Drunken Clam Dip. The Lodge is the perfect getaway destination, and ideal for your next special Event.

466 Lickstone Rd. • Waynesville NC 800.730.7923 • 828.456.5212 grandviewlodgenc.com BEST WESTERN RIVER ESCAPE INN AND SUITES A Best Western with a style all its own. Overlook a rambling river from your spacious room or relax on our scenic riverside patio. Enjoy deluxe guest rooms, suites, a heated indoor pool and hot tub, a hot breakfast bar and an atmosphere flowing with charm. One block from Historic Dillsboro, NC. 248 WBI Dr. • Dillsboro, NC 828.586.6060 bestwestern.com/riverescapeinnandsuites THE WAYNESVILLE INN GOLF RESORT & SPA This resort has been welcoming visitors to the mountains with southern hospitality since the 1920s.

Traditional resort amenities include historic and mountain view lodging, 27 holes of championship golf, restaurant and tavern, plus outdoor event space and pro shop. The location provides convenience to shopping, skiing, fishing, hiking and more.

176 Country Club Dr. • Waynesville, NC 800.627.6250 • thewaynesvilleinn.com

find us on facebook www.facebook.com/smliv

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# Discover the magic of Blowing Rock, NC in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains # Walk to downtown shopping and dining # Easy driving to many area attractions # 18 uniquely designed and decorated rooms

11914 Hwy. 105 S. Banner Elk NC 28604 134 MORRIS ST. BLOWING ROCK, NC 828.295.7987

#

www.HemlockInn.net

Lodging • Meetings • Banquets Reunions • Weddings • Recreation

828-963-6505 Smoketree-Lodge.com Managed by Vacation Resorts International

Experience our private 250 acre mountaintop inn, where you will find award-winning overnight accommodations, fresh farm-to-table menu selections daily in our restaurant, world-class hiking trails and warm hospitality awaiting your arrival at 5,000 feet.

The Swag, where Great Smoky Mountains National Park is our backyard, and 50 mile panoramic mountain views are our front.

Serving dinner nightly (including an hors d'oeuvre hour), daily backpack lunches, Wednesday gourmet picnic and Sunday Brunch

Escape to one of our lake side hotels or relax in a front porch rocking chair.

For a weekend getaway or week-long vacation, let us be your place in the mountains.

RESERVATIONS REQUIRED 800-789-7672 (bring your own wine and spirits) 75-63

2300 Swag Road • Waynesville 828.926.0430 • TheSwag.com

800.222.4930 www.lakejunaluska.com/specials WWW.SMLIV.COM

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ca le n d a r :

UPCOMING EVENTS

April Smoky Mountain Fiber Arts Festival

ASHLEY T. EVANS PHOTO

The Smoky Mountain Fiber Arts Festival will give you a glimpse into the storied Appalachian tradition of fiber arts and crafts, from sheep to sweater. Come try your hand at Border collie sheep-herding or sheep-shearing, sit in on classes and workshops, and marketplace of vendors, and art exhibits. Hands-on, educational demonstrations of fiber arts processes, such as spinning, weaving, needlecrafts and dyeing will take place for all ages to enjoy. 800.525.6834. April 19-20, Smoky Mountain Visitors Center at Townsend, Great Smoky Mountain Heritage Center, and other locations.

Knox Fest Outdoor Knox Fest brings together outdoors enthusiasts of all stripes to swap stories and get into the urban wilderness. The weekend-long festival will feature hikes, bike rides, trail runs, boat trips for paddlers, a disc golf clinic, and a range of other workshops and events for outdoorsy types of all ages. The program is not only a celebration of outdoor life, but also a fundraiser for the Legacy Parks Foundation, a group looking to make East Tennessee the southeast’s recreational destination. outdoorknoxville.com or 865.525.2585. April 19-21, Outdoor Knoxville Adventure Center, Knoxville, Tenn.

APPALACHIAN LIFESTYLE CELEBRATION The Downtown Waynesville Association’s third annual Appalachian Lifestyle Celebration showcases traditional mountain craft, food, and entertainment.

Demonstrators will showcase Appalachian art and crafts like basket making, blacksmithing, quilting, weaving, pottery, wood working and painting. Also featured are Appalachian life skills such as lumberjacking, butter churning, soap making, storytelling, native plants, and food preservation. Saturday, June 8, in downtown Waynesville, NC. 828.456.3517 or www.downtownwaynesville.com.

JON D. BOWMAN PHOTO

be in plentiful supply, with the Young Pickers Talent Contest as a highlight. For those inspired to take a turn around the dance floor, you can also catch performances from talented regional cloggers. Other aspects of Appalachia will be on display, including wildflower walks, storytelling, arts and craft demonstrations such as cast iron cooking savory Southern barbecue. It’s great opportunity for handson experiences of Smoky Mountain heritage. smokymountainfestivals.org or 800.525.6834. May 3-4, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, Smoky Mountain Visitors Center at Townsend, Townsend, Tenn.

Damascus Trail Days Cherokee Summer Kickoff Trout Tournament Anglers take note, for just $11 you can try your hand at the Cherokee Summer Kickoff Trout Tournament. The Cherokee Indian Reservation, home to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, is also home to miles of pristine fishing, and this weekend, $10,000 in tagged fish will be poured into the reservations rivers, redeemable for prizes from $20 to $500. All ages and (legal) fishing methods are welcome, so grab your waders and tackle and throw out your line in the beautiful Cherokee mountains. fishcherokee.com. April 26-28, Cherokee Indian Reservation, Cherokee, N.C.

May Townsend in the Smokies Townsend in the Smokies Spring Festival and Old Timers Day celebrates its 21st birthday this year, with a two-day fete dedicated to Appalachian history and culture. Bluegrass concerts and jam sessions will

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Each year, locals celebrate with Damascus Trail Days, a three-day festival homage to the trails, the town and the Appalachians. There will, of course, be plenty of hiking and biking for all skill levels, workshops and classes, camping, a parade, vendors, culinary offerings and music from Sons of Bluegrass, The Contrarians, Brother Gravity and The Farmhouse Ghost and even a trout rodeo. traildays.us. May 17-19 in Damascus, Va.

Smoky Mountain Highland Games A lauded mountain tradition, Highland games have been drawing crowds to the Smokies to honor the region’s Scottish heritage, listen to a bagpipe or two, and welcome the summer by watching some good old fashioned feats of strength. The East Tenneessee incarnation, Smoky Mountain Highland Games, will provide traditional Scottish music and fare along with the chance to learn about the ancient clans that come together for the games.

Then of course there’s the games themselves, dancing, a dog show, balladeers, and let’s not forget, a wide variety of Scotch to aid the enjoyment. smokymountaingames.com or 865.448.6134. May 17-19, Maryville College, Maryville, Tenn.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

Tennessee HOG Rally At the Tennessee HOG Rally, 2,500 riders are expected to come together in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains for food, fun and entertainment, and to enjoy some of the areas challenging and fun motorcycle routes. tnstatehogrally.com or 615.255.3442. May 28-June 1, Smoky Mountain Harley Davidson, Maryville, Tenn.

Swain County Heritage Festival Mountain music styles merge at the Swain County Heritage Festival, where old-time gospel, classic country, bluegrass and more blend with clogging, Indian hoop dancing and a plethora of local arts, crafts and can even you can test your lumberjack prowess at a log-sawing contest. greatsmokies.com.

May 24-25, Riverfront Park, Bryson City, N.C.

June Secret City Festival Oak Ridge, Tenn. and its storied history are the focus of the Secret City Festival, a two-day event that highlights the town’s role in ending World War II and the role it played in ending World War II. Historic displays walking through the town’s past and period living history demonstrations will please the history buffs, while tours of original Manhattan Project sites, including the Graphite Reactor and the Y-12 National Security Complex, will enteratin almost anyone. A full lineup of kid-friendly activites such as a petting zoo, water slide, rock climbing and more will be on hand for younger patrons. Like any good festival, you can also find arts and crafts vendors, antiques, food, music all day and 9 p.m. headliners. secretcityfestival.com or 865.425.3610. June 21-22, Oak Ridge, Tenn.

GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN HIGHLAND GAMES

Northeast Georgia Arts Tour Meet over 100 local artists-painters, potters, jewelry makers, fiber, glass, metal artists and more – and see them bring their craft to life at the Northeast Georgia Arts Tour. This multi-county self-driving art tour covers four north Georgia counties – Habersham, White, Rabun and Towns – and galleries and artisans across the region swing their studio doors open to visitors for a weekend in June. www.artstour.org. June 7-9, Northeast Georgia.

The granddaddy of all Highland games, the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, is celebrating its 58th year with everything that’s made it famous over the last five decades. Set atop the iconic mountain in full summer bloom, the sprawling festival taps the deep Scottish roots of Western North Carolina with tasty food and drink, handcrafts and demonstrations, highland dancing, pipe and drum and bagpipe tunes, kilts as far as the eye can see, and of course, the legendary games.

From the caber toss, where competitors try to sling logs the size of trees, to children’s highland wrestling—really— from dance to fiddle, there are a multitude of competitions in the art and athletics of being Scottish. And for the thousands more who just come to watch, the experience alone will let you walk away feeling like a true Scotsman.

For more information, visit gmhg.org or call 828.733.1333. July 11-14.

Taste of Scotland If you’re still yearning for all things Scottish during the lull between Highland games, look to downtown Franklin for Taste of Scotland weekend. You’ll find traditional Scottish entertainment, clans, authentic Scottish foods, music and dancing in addition to Pipe & Drum bands, a parade, Border Collie demonstrations, crafts, a shortbread contest, children’s Highland games and many other contests. tasteofscotlandfestival.org or 727.424.890. June 13-16, downtown Franklin, N.C.

July Folk Life Festival Take a step back to the roots of Appalachia at the Folk Life Festival, where heritage arts like spinning, candle dipping and blacksmithing come back to life.

Concerts will feature Traditional Appalachian and old time mountain music and visitors can get a taste of mountain skill displays, old fashion games and some community dancing. georgiastateparks.org or 800.573.9659. July 26-27, Unicoi State Park, Helen, Ga.

HUGH MORTON PHOTO COURTESY OF GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN

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The Octopus Garden Smoke Shop 210 Rosman Hwy Suite C, Brevard, NC 28712 - (828) 884-8796 2000 Spartanburg Hwy 300, Hendersonville, NC 28792 - (828) 697-1050 140 Airport Rd. Suite M, Arden, NC 28704 - (828) 654-0906 1062 Patton Ave, Asheville, NC 28806 - (828) 232-6030 660 Merrimon Ave, Asheville, NC 28804 - (828) 253-2883 80 N. Lexington Ave, Asheville, NC 28801 - (828) 254-4980 1269 Tunnel Rd. Suite B, Asheville, NC 28805 - (828) 299-8880 -

100% Locally Owned

If we don't have it. You probably don't need it.

WWW.SMLIV.COM

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d e p a r t m e n t :

MOUNTAIN VIEWS

Journey woman

BY CASEY QUINLAN

I

’m a lifelong journey fan. No, not the band, the actual moveacross-the-surface-of-the-planet version. As a Navy kid, I grew up with a passport in one hand, and a ticket in the other, as comfortable crossing borders as I was crossing my fingers when promising I wouldn’t venture outside my prescribed geographic boundaries. The places I wasn’t supposed to go always looked so much more interesting.

Sangfroid combined with a sense of adventure have been my modus operandi for decades now, which explains how I managed to put myself in a situation where I had to talk my way out of police custody in Saudi Arabia (you’ll have to buy me single-barrel bourbon to hear that story), and why I lived alone on a sailboat for twelve years.

Do people who stay in one place all their lives use the same definition of the word “journey” that I do? I’ve had more than a decade to ruminate on that, since my move from the Big Apple to the place I’ve MANDY NEWHAM ILLUSTRATION come to call (mostly with tongue firmly planted in cheek) Jimbobwe.

The map-wise journey from one of the biggest cities on earth to a small burg—Richmond, Va., where some of the inhabitants aren’t quite convinced that the Civil W … War of Northern Aggression is really over—was short.

The two cities are, after all, only a little more than 300 miles apart.

The other journey, the one involving the space between my ears, was much more …

Himalayan. Confession time: I’m a damn Yankee.

For real. My great-grandfather fought in a blue uniform, in a Pennsylvania regiment, in the aforementioned WONA. And, since my family has been career military since World War I, my worldview is very different than that of many of the folks I find myself journeying alongside these days.

I work hard to hide my eye-rolls. I stifle myself, with only a modicum of success, when it comes to the liberal sprinkling of fbombs that my long stay in New York and long career in TV news make me prone to fling when vexed.

What I’ve come to realize is the journey between my ears has mirrored my geographic one in that my worldview is less anchored by place than it is by community. One of the first things one learns as a kid who moves a lot is to identify co-conspirators quickly—find the kids who think like you do, and together you can plot to overthrow the nuns.

We never actually did overthrow the nuns, but we ran great guerilla campaigns that kept them on their toes and firmly

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attached to their rosaries and weaponized yardsticks. I managed this in several schools in a succession of towns and cities, making my career in network news a foregone conclusion long before I arrived in New York. All good journeys inform the next journey, don’t they?

I got a chance, two years before my Great White Way to Cradle of the Confederacy voyage, to journey through the Smoky Mountains on a road trip with my sister. We called this episode “Thelma & Louise: Book Two,” roaring down I-81 from the D.C. suburbs, where my sister lives, to Nashville and Memphis to celebrate her “if I tell you, she’ll have to kill you” birthday.

My promise to take her to Nashville (she’s a country music fan) for this ends-in-a-zero milestone anchored the trip. Memphis was part of the plan because I was going to have to rinse country-music cooties off me with some good, sweaty blues. I am so-very-not a fan of the Hat Act that country music has become.

On the way back north, we took a slow roll east on I40 to Asheville, N.C., where I learned an invaluable lesson, one that would make it possible for me to move to Richmond and not become a crime statistic—as a perp, not as a victim.

I had heard from many people, over many years, that Asheville was a small jewel of a city. That statement hardly does it justice, though. As we walked around downtown assessing our dining choices—much better than expected, and we’d expected plenty—I was surprised at the number of people on the street. Walking on Broadway in Asheville, I found myself pressed by as much of a crowd as I would expect to experience on Broadway in New York.

We soon found out why: the Kirov Ballet was in town, at the Civic Center. Smoky Mountain-area balletomanes were swarming to see one of the top troupes in the world bust a major series of moves. As we walked past the marquee, I looked up and saw that WWE RAW was in town in two days. Kirov, WWE. Sublime, utterly ridiculous. Back to back, in the same venue.

The lesson I learned from the smart folks who live in Asheville and environs? Find your community. The people who love what you love, and flock to see it. Ignore the rest. Live and let live.

That might be a bit more difficult in a small city, where there’s less available anonymity … yet even a damn Yankee can learn something new on the streets of a small Southern city.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 2

E XPLORE MORE THAN

WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

COMMUNITIES in

O N E L OCAT ION

LOCATED IN DOWNTOWN ASHEVILLE IN THE GROVE ARCADE, PRIVATE MOUNTAIN COMMUNITIES offers a warm and welcoming state-of-the-art showroom where you can find the mountain home you seek. On your terms. At your pace. We have detailed information on more than 200 private communities in the surrounding area. And our independent advisors can help you target your communities of interest, based on your architectural preferences, key amenities and location. There’s even a wine/coffee bar for you to enjoy while you leisurely research and compare communities. Call or drop by today to begin your search for the community that’s right for you.

888. 517. 3322 Downtown Asheville in the Grove Arcade One Page Avenue, Suite 150 privatemountaincommunities.com

Rob Wood Hiking Enthusiast and Professor Hip Replacement Recipient

JOINTS ARE REPLACEABLE. HIKING IS NOT. Rob researches the best trails, the best hiking boots and the best health care providers. Our Orthopedic Center of Excellence prides itself on our patient-centered care. Our goal is to provide you with the highest level of care, that’s why Pardee Hospital has been a recipient of the HealthGrades Joint Replacement Excellence Award™ for 7 years in a row (2007-2013). We’re here to get you back to the things that you love.

For more information on Pardee’s Orthopedic Services, call 1-866-790-WELL (9355) or visit www.pardeehospital.org.

ORTHOPEDIC SERVICES