Cataloochee Valley has become a prime spot for elk viewing since 2011, after an experimental program reintroduced elk to this part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The program was led by the National Park Service, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and a few other partners. Twenty-five radio collared elk were brought in and released.…
From Bat Cave, North Carolina, get yourself a jug of apple cider from a roadside stand and sip it all along NC-9 North and Bat Cave Road. Follow it right into Old Fort. Old Fort is a tiny town of less than 1,000 residents located halfway between Black Mountain and Marion, and halfway between Bat…
Charlotte North Carolina’s Plaza Midwood neighbourhood is located less than a mile from Uptown, Charlotte’s city center. Plaza Midwood runs along Central Avenue from Hawthorn Lane to Eastway Drive, though locals may cut it a few blocks short of Eastway Drive. The neighbourhood also has a locally-designated historic district in its westernmost part, a four…
One of the first things I noticed in downtown Boone, North Carolina was this mural painted by local artist Peter Grant Catoe. The mural depicts the Tank Man protest on Tiananmen Square back in 1989 when the repressed students and citizens of China rallied for economic reforms and personal freedoms, among other changes. The Chinese…
Grandfather Mountain is among the most rough and rugged mountains in Eastern USA and at 5,946 feet (1,812 m), it has the highest peak on the eastern escarpment of the Blue Ridge Mountains. My song for this entry is a heavy cover of Edvard Grieg’s classic “Hall of the Mountain King” by Apocalyptica: Daniel Boone…
Blowing Rock is a small town in northwestern North Carolina near the Tennessee border known as the “Crown of Blue Ridge” with around 1300 residents in its three square miles. The land that became the town of Blowing Rock first belonged to Cherokee and Catawba tribes, and when white settlers moved in, they used it…
One of my favourite drives for viewing fall leaves in East Tennessee is the Cherohala Skyway, a National Scenic Byway that runs between Tellico Plains, TN and Robbinsville, NC. TELLICO PLAINS The tiny 1.6 square mile town of Tellico Plains currently has less than 1,000 residents in what used to be the Cherokee settlement of Great…
Linville, North Carolina is an unincorporated community inside the Pisgah National Forest and the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was founded in the 1880s and known back then as the Clay or Porcelain town in Avery County. Linville is about 45 minutes southeast of Johnson City and an hour or so northeast of Asheville. The main…
Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head, Bodie Island, Whalebone Junction… just the names of these places invoke vivid images of screeching dragons, superhuman villains, and mutant sea creatures.
Ocracoke is a village on Ocracoke Island in the lower Outer Banks of North Carolina. There are no other towns or villages on the island, but it is helpful to understand the distinction. Wokokkon was first used by the Croatan and other Native American tribes as hunting and fishing grounds until British colonizers arrived in…
My younger brother is a monster truck maniac and I have taken him to few jams over the years. Not my thing, but I am always trying to come up with ideas and find events that make him happy. Recently he asked me to take him to a monster truck museum called Digger’s Dungeon, but…
This stretch of the Outer Banks has a sense of primordial abandon about it. Wild horses gallop between the ocean and gigantic sand dunes. It’s just miles and miles and miles of otherworld.
Fernweh 