Mountain Music

We left yesterday morning heading for Blowing Rock, NC. The road from Lenoir to Blowing Rock, Rt. 321, is being widened. It's a windy, switch-back road and so steep off the edges that you can hardly believe it's possible. They cut from the high side and truck it to the low side. The angle on the construction road looks straight up and down. The Blowing Rock is an outcropping that sits out almost like a pennisula into the Blue Ridge Valley. Almost a 360 degree view. It's privately owned and well kept. We ate a picnic lunch looking over the view. From there about 20 miles south on the Blue Ridge Pkwy to Grandfather Mountain, another privately owned scenic area. The drive to the upper lot put my stomack in my mouth. They've built a suspention bridge over a gourge up there, crossing to an outcropping that lends a full 360 degree view. Spectacular. ( This has to be the bridge that Rich Salmon has early recollections of.) The ride home took awhile. Everything down here is further than I think. We got back and were planning on attending a Navy Band concert in town, but the camp ground owner, Dan, told us that in Old Fort, the town just west of here, there is a little stage and hall where local mucisians play mountain music Friday nights. We got down there and went in. The hall was filled with older folks (aren't we all) of what would be described as an agricultural and back woods crowd. The music was great. Fiddle, bass, mandulin, and guitar. People were dancing what looked like an Irish jig and having a great time. About two hundred people were there. It was a great end to the day.