Travels with Serge and Jeanne: north to Amish country!

After a hearty breakfast in Blowing Rock we started north again on the Blue Ridge Parkway. At our first overlook we saw that any kind of weather could be developing.

Although it grew overcast the precipitation held off for much of the day. The travel schedule called for a series of smaller stops, but covering a lot of miles. First stop: E. B. Jeffress Park, which has a moderate trail to a cascade.

Here Serge and Jeanne admire the waterfall.


Serge was kept busy taking flower photos on the loop trail, including jack-in-the-pulpit and doghobble. The latter's common name comes from the entrapment of hunting dogs; if bear-hunting dogs became stuck in a thicket of doghobble the bear could play turn-about on its pursuers!

Here Joan provides scale for a jack-in-the-pulpit. They were easy to find on this trail, more so than back in Ohio.

Doghobble is very toxic, although the pendant blooms are pretty.

Continuing up the Parkway, the landscape shed some of its extremes, and more settlement was on either side. We had to turn the car around to admire this fellow.

The next step was Doughton Park, where we briefly investigated the Brinegar pioneer cabin and its grounds.

Just down the road was the Mahogany Rock Overlook. Opposite the parking area there were views of hard granite hills, on which vegetation finds it difficult to gain a footing.

Language diversion: we needed to explain to Serge and Jeanne that an overlook is a place to get a good view, and to look over is to inspect something, but to overlook something is to miss it, to inadvertently ignore it. It helps to be a native English speaker.

We crossed into Virginia and left the Tarheel State behind. Lunch beckoned to us at the Lake View restaurant in Fancy Gap, just off the Parkway. Jeanne took a good photo of the interior of this down-home local restaurant.

Afterwards we refueled the car and prepared to leave the Blue Ridge Parkway behind, to take I-77 up to Beckley, West Virginia. Here Jeanne caught Joan and Serge in a squeegee competition while I pumped gas.

Serge took this church photo from the moving car on our way to Beckley.

He found the US proliferation of churches of all types and in all locations interesting. Historically France has been 80% or more Roman Catholic, although this has been changing in modern times. Serge and Jeanne are accustomed to seeing one and only one church in each small French town, a Catholic church near the town center (along with a bakery).

Further north, in Ohio, Serge spotted roadside banners and calvaries.

It began to rain as we crossed into West Virginia, so there aren't any photos of that evening's activity. We checked into our hotel/motel in Beckley, and spent the evening at Tamarack, which features a café administered by the famous Greenbrier resort, and arts and handicrafts from West Virginia artisans. It's a stellar place to shop, with items ranging from postcards to exquisite glass, jewelry, and woodworking. Again, I can say that some purchases were made.

The next morning we continued up I-77, headed for Marietta, Ohio, on the Ohio River. Serge captured the West Virginia capitol in Charleston, WV, from the moving car.

Eventually we crossed the Ohio River and visited the town of Marietta.

Marietta, the first permanent American settlement in Ohio (in all of the original Northwest Territories, actually), has French connections. It's named after Marie Antoinette, and the Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette stopped here during his 1824-1825 grand tour of the young United States. Serge and Jeanne eagerly took pictures of these links to their home country.

The name 'Lafayette' is everywhere in Marietta, including the grand downtown riverfront hotel.

We strolled and drove around the town. One friendly citizen directed us to "the best place for lunch in town," but it was full, so we ate later on the drive. An old railroad bridge is now a pedestrian walkway over the Muskingum River where it flows into the Ohio.

There's a duck nesting in the closest hanging planter.

From the walkway, we could see a canoe being paddled up the Muskingum.

We continued north, had a late lunch and finally reached Dover, Ohio, for its must-see stop of the Warther Museum. Ernest "Mooney" Warther started carving at age 5, and continued to develop his skills even while working at the local steel mill between the ages of 14 and 38. The centerpiece of the museum is the collection of historic trains that he carved during his lifetime, piece by piece; the largest were up to 8 feet long and assembled from up to 10,000 separate individually carved pieces. We have no pictures, but you owe it to yourself to see the museum if you're ever nearby.

A short distance from Dover is Berlin, Ohio (pronounced BURR-lynn), the heart of northeastern Ohio's Amish country. We were to spend the next two nights at the Lamplight Inn bed and breakfast, two blocks north of downtown. The skies had cleared this far north.

We had dinner that night in Berlin, at the Boyd and Wurthmann restaurant. Their motto is "where the locals eat," and we'll vouch for that. Inside there's a whiteboard where the pies that are still in stock are tallied in eraseable marker. We came away well satisfied.

On our way back to the Inn, we passed a parked horse whose owner had an ingenious safety system.

As you see, each leg had a reflective strap, such as a bicyclist might wear. The owner of this horse must have a less-strict bishop. (An Amish bishop, elected for life, makes many of the decisions about what is permissible for his district of 25 to 30 families.) The buggy was parked next to the horse.

We would see a lot more of Amish life the next day.

Cowly Owl

As soon as we reached home with S and J (yes, I will continue working on our account of the trip), one of the barred owl parents made an appearance for our guests. Immediately, it was deemed a superb owl, and much photographed by Serge.

And I learned something from Serge and Joan, a phrase current when they were in university at Nantes. According to the French dictionary Le Petit Robert, the word 'chouette' is not only the noun for 'owl', but used as an adjective means pretty, elegant, worthy of admiration. This usage was first employed in 1830. Also, 'vachement' (literally, cow-like) has two meanings; informally, it can be dull or mechanical, reminiscent of a cow chewing cud, or, very informally, it can be an intensifier ('very') usually in a positive sense. Very nice. Really excellent. Vachement chouette. Cowly owl.

The owls made several appearances, visual and vocal, for our guests, for which we were grateful. They did not get a chance to see the owl chicks, however. Nor did we for a long time. It had been a wet spring, with an extraordinarily warm April, and the foliage burst out much earlier than last year, obscuring our views behind a green curtain. However, a few days ago we did get to see one youngster. The views were better by binocular than with camera, but I hope these photos are good enough to merit a glance.

At first we saw only one of the parents, hunched over in an odd position.

Later it turned to face the other way and spread its feathers.

I was inside with the kitchen window lowered. Joan moved to the deck to observe from a different angle, and this interrupted the feeding of robin chicks in the dogwood overhanging our deck. The parent would not approach the nest while a potential predator lurked nearby (Joan). Even with a mess of worms ready to deliver.

Then we spotted a chick deeper in the woods. I was kneeling on the floor at times to get the best view through the opened window.

That afternoon Joan called me downstairs to see the parent with some prey -- in binoculars it looked perhaps to be a very young squirrel -- standing next to the chick.

The parent would wave the prey in front of the chick. Sometimes it would be transferred from beak to claw and back. I assume the chick could have taken the morsel at any time, but it did not, and the parent did not render the corpse to offer smaller tidbits.

Finally the parent either lost patience with her offspring, or was too tempted for herself, and swallowed the young squirrel. The food took a while to inch down the owl's gullet; her head remained aimed at the sky for several minutes before she could lower it again.

I can just hear the parent saying, "if you won't eat this, then I will."

Travels with Jeanne and Serge: North Carolina

We embarked the next morning for North Carolina, wondering how long we would stay ahead of the storms that brought tornadoes to Mississippi. A short stint on I-75, then winding along state routes and through small towns took us to the Cherohala Skyway. This National Scenic Byway opened in 1996, and offers a route less traveled for a scenic crossing of the mountains. Starting as low as 900 feet, its high point is 5400 feet. We pulled over at an early stop to stretch our legs.

Photographer Serge was on duty.

The chill grew as we climbed higher, and the clouds slowly thickened. The view, however, was unlike anything Jeanne and Serge had seen so far on their visit.

Serge loved the light, mountains, and clouds. This photo is his:

As is this documentary one.

After leaving the Skyway but before reaching Robbinsville, we passed several local township road signs that were printed in both English and Cherokee. This discovery prompted us to describe some Cherokee history to Serge and Jeanne, focusing on the forced removal (Trail of Tears) in 1838, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee that hid in the mountains to escape that evil.

There was an occasional raindrop, but no real showers yet, as we drove down the Nantahala River gorge. Serendipity brought us a conjunction of kayakers and a Great Smoky Mountains Railroad excursion.

There was even a caboose!

We stopped at Bryson City, and steady rains descended, but this didn't block us from a welcome lunch at Mountain Perks. Afterwards, we started our soggy foggy journey towards the Pisgah Inn and the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP). Serge took this shot through the car windshield.

Given the weather we elected not to join the BRP at Balsam Gap, but stayed on lower roads until the climb up to Wagon Road Gap, just three miles or so from the Inn. Route 276 snaked along a valley and then wiggled up to the gap. Just before reaching it, we entered dense fog, as often happens on this stretch of the BRP. We crept along inside a small bubble surrounded by gray on all sides, barely seeing either side of the road. Joan, driving that day, was greatly relieved when the reached the Inn. Also at the Inn was a wedding party, executing plan B; the original plan had been to have the wedding at an overlook. Not today.

One of my duties on this trip was wine chooser. Naturally we wanted to expose Jeanne and Serge to American wines as much as we could. Later, we would even try some Ohio wines. This night Jeanne took a picture of the selection, a good sign.

The rain continued to pound that evening, accompanied by a howling, umbrella-inverting wind. The windows in the dining room were not designed for sideways and even upwards rain (being blown up the ridge atop which the Inn was perched). A small puddle formed under our corner table during dinner, not deep enough to make us move.

By the next morning the weather had improved enough to take a few pictures of the inn. Jeanne's were the best.

Serge joined into the spirit of the trip with Squeaker, one of the two pigs accompanying us. French lessons, perhaps?

There were several closures along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. The stretch between the Pisgah Inn and Asheville is closed for months because of rock slide and undermining danger. Between Asheville and our destination for the day, Blowing Rock, there were two sections closed because of debris and fallen timber from a big ice storm during the winter. (They reopened during May.) So, we returned to Wagon Road Gap for the first detour. We would pick up the BRP again just before Asheville. At this altitude, the trees had not begun to leaf out yet. But we could see something this time!

Taking route 276 down off the mountain, we stopped at Looking Glass Falls, running full.

We rejoined the Parkway and soon stopped at the Southern Highlands Folk Art Center. Being several thousand feet lower, more trees were in bloom.

After visiting the center -- always worth a stop -- and taking away a few gifts, we began the climb up to Craggy Gardens and Craggy Dome (parking area is at 5650'). Rising out of the Asheville valley, we got a look back at where we'd been the night before.

After a brief stop at Craggy Gardens we parked at the trailhead for Craggy Dome. It's a 1.4 mile round trip, moderate, that takes you to a wonderful viewpoint.

Faced with two potential detours, and the day advancing quickly, we decided to link the two detours rather than get off - get on - get off - get on. Joan and I wanted to guarantee that we had time to explore the Linn Cove Viaduct, close to Blowing Rock. Soon it was time for a late lunch. Fortunately, Serge and Jeanne were quite flexible.

Our French friends acquired a great many food firsts on this trip. They were introduced to, among other things, grits, catfish, maple syrup, cheesecake, pecan pie, cottage cheese, cream cheese, hush puppies, and collard greens. Cheesecake was a big hit, and we found a recipe for Jeanne on the Web that used ingredients available in France. Only the hush puppies failed their taste test.

There were plenty of sights to see along the extended detour. North Carolina is the second-ranked state in production of Christmas trees.

Serge stayed busy with his camera, ignoring the car windows.

At the Viaduct, we took the walk out to the structure.

The story of the Viaduct is amazing. It was the last link the Blue Ridge Parkway to be built, because a method had to be found to construct the road without disturbing the environmentally fragile Black Rock area of Grandfather Mountain. Here's that link again.

There was plenty of evidence of the ice storm that had created our detours.

By now it was after 4 pm, and another of Serge's rules had come into effect; although he and Jeanne were avid flower photographers, he was usually reluctant to take yet another flower picture after 4. Jeanne coaxed him into capturing this red trillium even though it was late.

After the walk we investigated the visitor's center, which included a scale model of the construction of the viaduct. Some purchases were made. Blowing Rock, our motel, and dinner, were not far away. Thank you for these pictures, Jeanne and Serge!

Even with the storm that caught up to us on the mountains, it was an excellent couple of days.