We emerged from the Big
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.
And daddy won’t you take
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away
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
House on the Hill
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.
Much Ado About Food Stores
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.
Mill Musings
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.
Unreal Estate
Just for fun, go to Google and enter a search for “Floyd County Virginia”.
In the first two pages, 13 of the listings are for Realtors or real estate for sale in Floyd County. Sure must be a lot of people buying homes and/or property in Floyd County.
Something to Think About
Among my various and sundry (and sometimes tawdry) enterprises is a political news web site called Capitol Hill Blue, which is now (drum roll please) the oldest surviving news site on the World Wide Web.
We’ve been online since October 1, 1994 (forever in Internet terms) and became the oldest surviving site when the Raleign News & Observer closed NandoNet last year.
Blue operates under two mottos:
The I-81 Death March
Back in the city after a four-hour white knuckle drive up I-81. Truckers, as usual, traveling in packs and slowing traffic as they try to pass each other uphill.
Cars
Like most men, I’ve had a lifelong love affair with cars.
Started with a 1957 Ford hardtop that I drove through my high school years in Floyd County. An uncle helped me shoehorn a 1962 Ford 406 cubic-inch V-8 into the car and it could outrun just about anything on the road (including some state troopers who knew it was me but wouldn’t go into court and admit they couldn’t catch the car on the open road).
A Mustang replaced the ’57 until I wandered into Magic City Ford in Roanoke one day and spied a brand-new Shelby GT-500 fastback. It cost $4700 in 1967 dollars but the engine was a full-bore 427 cubic-inch, two-four-barrel carb, 425 horsepower monster. The car ran great, in a straight line, and didn’t hold a curve one night when I totaled it against a rock wall.
Some years later, I would find out that Ford only made 17 of the GT500s with the 427 and the car is now worth about 750 grand. Sports cars later replaced the American iron — first an MG Midget, then a "B" and finally a Triumph TR-6.
Then the ultimate — a Bahia red Porsche 911 Targa. Put 300,000 plus miles on the 911 before selling it.
The sports cars are gone, replaced by a 2000 Jeep Wrangler as my daily driver. The Jeep is perfect for the snow and mud of Floyd County and also serves me well in Northern Virginia.
Amy completed the Jeep circle with a 2002 Liberty (red like the Porsche) and after 41 years, I’m back to American iron.
The last car of non-American origin, a British-Japanese hybrid Sterling, went to a charity. Both Jeeps have proven to be the most reliable cars we’ve owned.
Over 40,000 miles on the Liberty and 28,000 on the Wranger and not an ounce of trouble. And both are pure Jeep, able to slog their way through mud, snow and muck without any problems.
Snow
When snows falls in the city, it’s dirty before it hits the ground, having to sift through pollution and the grime that comes from thousands (sometimes millions) of car, truck and bus exhausts.
Not so in the country. Snow adds a clean look to the landscape, a white covering that obscures mud, clear-cut hillsides and litter that doesn’t belong in such a beautiful setting.
Even today, after some partial melting on Monday, the remaining snow offers a beautiful reminder of nature.
This also reminds us that this has been a winter of discontent — too many cold days, too much ice and much more snow than normal.
But what is normal? When I was growing up in Floyd County, snow was part of winter, something we expected and learned to deal with without closing schools (or delayed openings).
The school bus drivers just slapped some chains on the rear wheels and made the rounds. Nowadays, lawyers rule the schedules. Don’t take a chance, they warn, and bus children in the snow. If there is a wreck, the school district would be liable and God knows how much that would cost.
So, in the end, school districts spend their money on overly-cautious legal advice and the children stay home. At least we can still enjoy the snow in Floyd County, even if these times of global warming snowy winters are more the exception than the norm. As a photographer, I love snow.
There’s a picture anywhere you choose to point your lens. In the city, you photograph people dealing with the ravages of snow — slipping and sliding on slick sidewalks, shoveling driveways and slogging through slush. In the country, you photograph the pastoral beauty. Big difference. Thank goodness.