Bluff Mountain, Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina
For the weak of stomach, let me say that this isn’t a post about slugs, or Zombie Frogs.
Over Independence Day Weekend, I took a road trip down to Asheville, North Carolina, with Isabel and John. We were there to attend a mutual friend’s wedding. My initial resentment at having to travel on or about the 4th of July, a holiday reserved in my mind for hanging out in backyards, grilling burgers, watching fireworks, and under no circumstances venturing more than ten miles from home or site of extended vacation, was soon overcome by the joy of the drive. Bridges rose and fell beneath the fender, the city disappeared in the rearview mirror, and gave way to New Jersey highways, checked with Queen Anne’s Lace; long Pennsylvania farmland, tagged with homely place-names; Maryland’s mixed mouth of northern speed and southern splendor; West Virginia’s jutty hills, invitingly close to home; Virginia’s stately verdure and eternally clear-eyed skies; and finally, via a detour through trailer parks and used car lots, pulsing with an auctioneer’s patter, onto the Blue Ridge Parkway, past staggering cloud-smoked hills and bounding ruddy deer, into lovely, slow-spoken North Carolina itself. In the backseat, Isabel made us mozzarella and tomato sandwiches on good baguettes, layered with fresh basil and moistened with olive oil and vinegar, somehow without spilling a drop. Arriving late that night, John and I dropped Isabel at her downtown hotel, and proceeded to our rooms at the Motel 6, the choice of classy iconoclasts everywhere. Read the rest of this entry »
