holidays

We went out for breakfast, bought stamps, then checked out of the hotel and set off for Galax (pr ‘Gay-lax’), Virginia. We drove most of the way along the Blue Ridge Parkway, a scenic road built in the 1930s under Roosevelt’s administration. The road runs high up in the mountains, with frequent pull-ins called ‘overlooks’ where you can stop to admire the view. At times the road is on top of a ridge and there are overlooks on both sides, each offering vast views over the rolling mountains falling away below to the east and west.

We stopped to buy sandwiches for lunch at Blowing Rock, and further on parked and walked down a trail to look at a waterfall. At one point we had to stop and wait half an hour while workmen felled trees up ahead. There was so little traffic on the road that in half an hour only three cars pulled up behind us. Getting closer to Galax, the road dropped down and snaked through meadows and alongside creeks. We saw three wild turkeys, and some deer.
We arrived at the Fiddlers’ Roost cabins on Fisher’s Peak Road at around 6pm after a drive up a dirt track through the woods. We were directed to cabin 5- a one-bedroom cabin with a raised porch and a hot-tub looking out into the woods. Andy, one of the owners, cautioned us about bears.

We drove into Galax, ‘world capitol of old-time music’, and ate a good dinner off polystyrene plates at the Galax smokehouse. Then we went to the Stringbean Coffeehouse for the Tuesday night jam session. We sat on a small stage with three local musicians and played with them for about an hour to an audience of groups playing cards and drinking coffee.

Back at the cabin we sat on the porch and listened to a whippoorwill calling out in the trees, and watched the moths and fireflies.
Click the link to hear the whippoorwhill: 0623_003148.mp3