We emerged from the Big Walker Mountain tunnel on I-77 to see the “Welcome to Virginia” sign and let out a whoop.

It took eight years and too many deaths of construction workers to build the both the Big Walker and East River Mountain tunnels — keys to opening the stretch of I-77 from Wytheville to Bluefield and Princeton, West Virginia.

Big Walker Mountain is part of the Jefferson National Forest, which meant no highway through the land. In 1930, a farmer plowing his field unearthed an Indian burial ground, putting that land off limits. Tunnels became the only option.

At 35,000 feet, the effects of strip mining in West Virginia and Kentucky are all too clear. Mountains flattened, land scarred, trails of erosion carrying mud and debris into streams and rivers.

Most people think strip mining is part of the coal industry’s sordid past, but the practice of using giant shovels to carve away entire mountains continues today as demand for

Rocky Knob, the first "scenic overlook" one encounters when entering southbound on the Blue Ridge Parkway at Virginia Route 8, holds a lot of memories.

Raging teenage harmones often drew me to The Knob during the high school years in Floyd County. The ’57 Ford’s AM radio would pull in WLS in Chicago or WABC in New York, the perfect backdrop for two teenagers trying to figure out what goes where and why.

Meatloaf sang about such teen agnst in his rock classic Paradise by the Dashboard Light.

Maybe, for fun, we ought to survey those who grew up in Floyd County to find out just how many lost their virginity at Rocky Knob, either in the backseat of a car or on a blanket in the shelter at the top of the trail.
The Knob has always been a special place, not only for memories of those nights when one young lady or another helped me steam up the windows of that ’57 Ford but also for the number of pictures

I have shot in and around the overlook. It offers one of the best views of the Buffalo plus an incredible view of the valley below, leading into Stuart. One such shot of the Buffalo, taken through a 500mm telephoto lens, shows a house with what must be the best view of the mountain.

Yet I can’t figure out exactly where that house is or how to get to it even though it appears in dozens of photographs taken of the mountain from the Knob. Just one of those mysteries I have to solve someday. When I get the time.

Listen to conversation over lunch in the Blue Ridge Restaurant or Oddfellas and, sooner or later, Food Lion will come up.

The debate usually centers around whether or not opening a Food Lion grocery store in Floyd is (1) good for the economy or (2) the beginning of the end of life as we know it in the town.

According to the National Park Service, Mabry Mill is the most photographed location along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

That shouldn’t surprise anyone who lives around here.

The Mill is featured on just about every brochure put out by the Park Service, local tourism groups and historical societies.

Most tourists visit the Mill during the Spring, Summer and Fall Months.

I like to visit during the cold of winter, when ice clogs the mill trace and forms its own beauty with nature.

I took my first picture of the Mill in 1955, using a plastic Kodak Brownie camera my grandfather gave to me for Christmas. A typical snapshot. The pond in the foreground, the Mill in the background.

The print still resides in one of my mother’s scrapbooks but the negative, unfortunately, was lost long ago.

As my interest in photography increased, so did the pictures of the Mill. In 40 years, I’ve shot the Mill from every imaginable angle and at every time of the year. Lately, in sorting through more than 40 years of prints, negatives and slides, I’ve cataloged more than 1,000 shots of the Mill, ranging from the standard snapshot of so many years ago to artsy-fartsy low angles and Photoshop-modified collages.

But a box of slides taken during the winter in 1982 caught my attention and two from there are featured here.

It’s the dead of winter and ice coats the mill trace. No tourists, only a couple of cars in the parking lot and mostly silence on a weekday afternoon.

A great time at Mabry Mill and the Blue Ridge Parkway.