Ansel on the Blue Ridge

Ansel on the Blue Ridge
Originally uploaded by chriskoehn.

Some scenic hiking near the parkway and Floyd, VA.

Cape Fear River(ripple)

Cape Fear River(ripple)
Originally uploaded by chriskoehn.

The Cape Fear River, near the confluence with the Atlantic, at dusk.
Something useful from Photoshop: you can turn a blurry photo in to "art" by using the ocean ripple effect!

flytrap close up

flytrap close up
Originally uploaded by chriskoehn.

Straight outta Little Shop of Horrors...

venus flytrap

venus flytrap
Originally uploaded by chriskoehn.

we check out a cluster of venus flytrap along a titdal marsh hiking trail near Wilmington, N.C.

hikeblueridge

hikeblueridge
Originally uploaded by chriskoehn.

Ansel hikes a trail with a great view near Floyd, VA

From Floyd, VA to Charleston, SC

After leaving Lexington VA, we made our way to the Blue Ridge parkway once again to continue our voyage south. We chose a small highway to cut across the few miles of country from the interstate to the Parkway. I, of course, chose to ignore the signs warning off trucks and RV’s from this particular road. Steep grades? Sharp corners? No problemo- I am pulling with a Powerstroke!
As it turns out, these Virginians rather know which roads best not be used by the uninitiated. I think if they could have figured out a way to build this road straight up they would have. Instead they threw in extremely steep grades, combining them with switchbacks and hairpins that would be the envy of anyone planning the Pyrenees section of the Tour D’ France. But we made it to the parkway, and this time we were treated to a spectacular few hours’ drive to our next destination: Floyd Virginia and the shop of Dreaming Creek Timber Frame Homes.
Dreaming Creek is the biggest shop I’ve worked in on our tour so far. They cut an average 40 frames a year here, and many of those are quite large. John Miller, our host at D.C., landed Beer Can One in the shop’s front yard, replete with electric, water, and sewer. That sewer hookup: Now this is living!
Nestled in the Blue Ridge at 3,000 feet, Floyd has become something of an artist’s colony in the past decade. It’s always had an alternative bent I’m told. But the local folks here certainly work hard (successfully) at maintaining their local culture, while welcoming the new comer “hippies” with tolerance, if not open arms. It was this unique culture- along with the beauty of the mountains- that drew the founders of D.C. here in the 1980’s.

My days at Dreaming Creek were largely filled with work. They are booked for months in advance, and the shop was crunching out a large job they needed help with. D.C. utilizes a Hundegger K-2 CNC machine to do the majority of timber cutting. The bulk of shop labor is relegated to “hand tooling” timber coming off the machine- cleaning up joinery and corners the machine can’t cut- along with checking to see that the machine is cutting accurately. I did lots of both. We worked 7:30 to 6, m-th and 7:30 – 4:30 on Fridays. Made for nice paychecks, but didn’t do much for my social life.

Weekends were filled with adventure. Our first Friday night we took the boys to a jam session at the Country Store in Floyd. This is a weekly event, and is heavily populated by locals. There was a succession of fantastic bluegrass and old time bands. Lots of folks from 10 to 90 dancing, clogging, tapping, and flat footing. The boys joined in and had a blast. Saturday we went for a hike on one of the many beautiful trails in these Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a beautiful crisp day, and the views across the mountains at sunset were spectacular.
Saturday evening we were invited to John Miller and Sue Ellen’s house. They are currently finishing a beautiful timber frame home on top of the most un-buildable knife ridge I could imagine. The first two times we visited their home were at night, and we couldn’t really get a good idea of what the site was like. When I returned in daylight the following week to help install a timber frame deck on the south side of their home I could see the precarious nature of our worksite. If one were to slip and tumble a bit- nothing out of the ordinary on a construction site- you would roll for about 20 feet and then drop off a shear rock wall 100 feet straight down. A similar fate awaited those on the north side of the house, as well as the west. The east side- taken up almost entirely by the drive- was the only reasonably graded dirt on the place. And I use the word “reasonably” with substantial liberalism. Their drive cuts across 1/2 mile of hilly pasture owned by a neighboring farmer. On our way out one night, we came over a hill and almost took out a heifer.

Sunday 12/5 found us back on the Blue Ridge. This time our destination was the Chateau Morrisette, perhaps the leader in the Virginia wine movement. Besides having a beautiful timber frame winery cut by the good folks at Blue Ridge Timber Wrights- down the road in Christiansburg- the chateau makes some killer wines. We happened to visit on an open house day, and as a consequence we enjoyed a free tour, hors d’oeuvres, a wine tasting, and an extra 10% off on all wines. We bought a case. Afterward we returned to Floyd, as they were having a Winter Fest parade. All the small town royalty, fire fighters, marching bands, civic organizations, local businesses, guys with big trucks: everything that you could imagine makes a Christmas parade in a small town like Floyd a “do not miss” event.

The following Friday 12/10 I took off and drove the boys to Roanoke, giving Ruth a much- needed day by herself. We visited the Virginia Transportation Museum, where the highlight was climbing on the last steam engine built in the Roanoke yards (in 1950), as well as many exhibits awaiting refurbishment out in the yard. While some of them looked a bit dicey and worse for wear, the boys got to “drive” everything from a 1920’s fire truck to a railroad clean up crane derrick. We also had lunch at a famous hot dog stand (something Ruth would not approve of.. were she there..), saw Santa in the history museum, and abused the exhibits at the science museum for an hour (fortunately our boys weren’t the only kids running roughshod in there). I think Ansel may have even learned a thing or two.

Saturday 12/11 was punctuated by a contra dance held in a local hall. After a slow start, the boys once again stole the show and we all had a good time. The music was bluegrass and old time, the band was first class, the crowd was funky. Turns out contra dancing is a New England thing, and there is a certain segment of the local population that- ahem- does not approve.
Sunday was cook’s day off, and we went to the Blue Ridge Café to rub elbows with the locals over biscuits and gravy, grits, and farm fresh eggs. Mmm mmm. Then it was back up on to the Parkway for a drive down to Meadows of Dan- a small town (named for the Dan River, which eventually flows through Danville, past Dan Mountain… get the picture? Who was Dan and why did he have so many geographic features named for him??). Turns out there is a great little music shop there- Meadows Music- where Jeff the proprietor builds beautiful stringed instruments by hand. He specializes in traditional mountain instruments like hammer dulcimers, banjos, mandolins, guitars, and the like. But he also builds a “banjimer”- a three stringed hybrid that sounds for all the world like a dulcimer. It’s most easily tuned to “G C G”, so that the player can get nice chords by manipulating just one string. We of course had to have one. We’ve all been taking turns with it almost daily since. Can’t wait to get more proficient with it.

It got cold up there in Floyd our last few days there. 17 degrees one night. In fact we froze our supply water line so solid it split. Yet another project to look forward to. Oh well- could have been much worse. When the time came to leave Floyd on Wednesday 12/15, we were of course sad to leave all of our new friends there- Sharee in the office; Mike, the Erins, Mary and all in the office; Karen (thanks again for sitting the boys!), Steve, Sean, Scott, Randy, Ron and all the rest in the shop— John and Sue Ellen- but we gotta get somewhere warm before the silver bullet freezes solid! After one last encounter with Appalachian roads- this time hwy 8 coming east of the parkway- feewf- we made our way to the research triangle area of North Carolina.

Our visit this time was with Allan Rosen- a gentleman referred to me by Will Beemer of the Timber Framers Guild. Allan has 35 acres of “Duke Forest” near Chapel Hill and he would like to build an “eco development” on it. Phase one will be a community center- timber framed of course- to be cut from trees on site. We had a nice walk with Allan on his property, plotted a course to make the building happen (hopefully next fall), thanked him for his overnight camping spot hospitality, and continued on south and east. We’d had enough of cold weather camping, and decided to keep going south and east in the Carolinas until we ran out of land. This brought us to Carolina Beach State Park, at the confluence of the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic. We spent one night there, hiked the dunes, saw Venus Flytraps in their native environment, and continued south- having whetted our appetites for warmth and the taste of saltwater. The next night we stayed at Myrtle Beach State Park. Now you’re talking BEACH. Unfortunately, the thing that comes with a beautiful beach in this case is unbridled development, which has resulted in literally 20 miles of sprawl along the shore. Suffice to say I’m glad we were there off- season. I can’t imagine this place during spring break. Maybe 20 years ago things would have appeared differently to me…

Tonight we’re at a KOA just north of Charleston South Carolina. The KOA wasn’t our first choice, but it’s close to the city (which we plan to visit tomorrow- particularly the Yorktown WW2 aircraft carrier moored in the harbor, and Fort Sumter), and lots of fun things for the boys, including a heated pool, playground, mini golf, etc. I hope they don’t get too used to this kind of camping, as it drives Ruth nuts, and I’m sure we won’t do much more of it. A certain style of camping seems to permeate commercial campgrounds like this. You just don’t see a Papa John’s Pizza delivery dude asking for directions to site 47 in a national park campground.
We’ve finally found some semblance of warmth. It was 60 today and beautiful. It’s tempting to blow off Christmas in Arkansas and make for the keys. See ya folks when things warm back up…..