Heading Back to Blue Ridge and Montreal: Fancy Gap and Mabry Mill VA revisited

---

---

On Friday 14th August we started heading north from Savannah for our journey back, across the Blue Ridge this time instead of along it. We were heading ultimately towards Waynesboro VA which is exactly on the split between the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Shenandoah Skyline Drive. In fact they are part of the same Appalachian Ridge, but are divided by the saddle that carries the road between Charlottesvile and Waynesboro. But first we decided to aim for Fancy Gap which is a bit further south on the Blue Ridge and stay for the second time at the Inn at Orchard Gap.

In order to get there on time we head out north on I-95 (interstate = motorway for us Brits) then I-26 towards Columbia SC then I-77 round Charlotte SC. We make good progress by this necessary but irksome method. Even so we are short of time to find somewhere to eat so we head into Mount Airy VA which Carol has read has restaurant worth visiting. It's closed, but in one of those instances I mentioned on an earlier blog posting we discover a really homely family diner heaving with customers. Simply by ignoring it's 'dowdy' exterior, taking a chance and asking the locals where to go the Pandowdy comes up trumps with a dish of German origin - marinated steak and local beer.

We spend the night for the second time with Don and Sherry Foster at the Inn at Orchard Gap, sampling their magical sunsets from the upper balcony and a marathon breakfast the following morning. During breakfast Don explains American concerns with Obama's programme for 'socialised healthcare' as it is called there, and we explain the benefits of the National Health system in the UK as we have experienced it. I think we reach a better understanding of each other's position as a result. It is possible to to gain an understanding of another person's opinion without necessarily agreeing with it. My recommendation to citizens of the USA is to come on holiday to the UK and sample our National Health care and welfare system.

We had decided on this return journey to revisit any sites we could reasonably access in good time, given our schedule, that we had missed out on on our outward journey south. Travelling to Orchard Gap we could for instance revisit Mabry Mill where on our previous journey the site had been open but access to the building interiors was closed. But only by riding along the Blue Ridge again the next day.

Sometimes nostalgia colours the memory, but not this time. The Blue Ridge retains it's magical serenity, and has a calming effect as we sweep along its dips and curves with flashes of landscape through the trees. We wonder about perhaps it being familiar - but in fact it looks different from the opposite end.

So on the following day we returned to Mabry Mill. On this visit we met some descendants of the Mill occupants Ed and Lizzy Mabry, and within the same family possible descendants of Daniel Boone, the famous frontiersman. Taylor Boone, a 13-year-old schoolgirl, had approached us as she heard our English accents and was interested in doing a school exchange in the UK. Lucky for her, she had found two schoolteachers and Carol is now going to put her in touch with some pupils in her school.

A note on the Mill. It represents a way of life that began to disappear in the 1920's. The local communities were almost entirely agrarian and struggling to make a living during a drought in the late '20's but also threatened by industrialisation. Although farming communities were already struggling and in decline, the formation of national forests, the Shenandoah Park (north of Mabry) and later the development of the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Appalachians sometimes involved forced removal by government agencies and in the Shenandoah saw an end to their existence. (An episode of the TV series The Waltons was dedicated to the just such an eviction).

It is worth remembering the Native Indian tribes before them suffered total loss of their way of life at the hand of gold prospectors and white settlers.

The areas we now travel through and admire are carefully managed to present an ideal landscape previously threatened by overexploitation and drought, but in some measure enabled by a lost way of life. See and

Written 1st September 2090, edited July 2010

---

Photos

The Inn at Orchard Gap
The Inn sits on a hill with a panoramic view across the Blue Ridge

Inn at Orchard Gap
Balcony view

The Inn at Orchard Gap
Balcony view in the evening

The Inn at Orchard Gap
On the balcony at sunset - beer in hand - donated by the restauranter at Mt Airy.

The Inn at Orchard Gap
Balcony view at sunset

The Inn at Orchard Gap
Early morning mist

The Inn at Orchard Gap
Breakfast - and there was more not even on the plate yet - cinnamon and apple buns, home made jams, a potato cake (a dish of baked grated potato and cheese), more sausages. The scones are called biscuits in the States

The Inn at Orchard Gap
Leaving - riding a Goldwing downhill on gravel is no joke. Carol elected to walk down the hill and take photographs from a safe position. Perhaps she was hoping for a spectacular exit?

Mabry Mill Revisited
The Blue Ridge Experience - Mabry Mill
I was delighted to see this blacksmith demonstrating on our second (return journey) to Mabry. As a teenager I was taught blacksmithing and a lot of other traditional crafts at school - one of the few advantages of going to Secondary Modern (technical high school) as well as a Grammar School (academic school). Alas - these skills are no longer taught in this way - with good reason - but even so a sad loss of skill and understanding of materials

Mabry Mill Revisited
The water mill used to drive machinery for corn grinding and a saw mill. It and all the other items on site are a now a museum demonstrating a way of life that started to dissapear in the 1930's

Mabry Mill Revisited
We met the descendents of the husband and wife who lived at the mill, and who later built this as their retirement house. It was moved on site by conservationists, piece by piece from a neighbouring town where they had retired

Mabry Mill Revisited
Appalachian style fencing

Comments

[Jackie]

So glad to hear from you. Was a hint worried that you had decided to emmigrate. Fab photos. America has the best (and probably the worst ) of everything. I love it. Thank you for your informative blogs. It has reminded us that we must put this part of the States back on our list of things to do before we die! Hope you are both planning your next trip already. See you soon. Safe driving and flying - J