On Top of the World

Imagine driving on top of the world, on a two-lane highway, with green valleys on either side of you and almost no one else around.  

Imagine starring in your own sports car commercial, exceeding the posted speed limit by as much as 25 mph while listening to the songs of your youth.

Well, I just got into town about an hour ago

Took a look around, see which way the wind blow

Where the little girls in their Hollywood bungalows

Are you a lucky little lady from The City of Lights?

Or just another lost angel?

Imagine barely stopping to take a picture, except for the Mabry Mill!

Imagine picking up the picturesque Blue Ridge Parkway in Fancy Gap, Virginia on a sunny spring afternoon and leaving behind the mountainous mist and drizzle the next morning 200 miles north, in Waynesboro. 

Actually it wasn't quite as fast as it sounds.  The posted speed limit on "America's favorite drive," which spans North Carolina and Virginia, is 45 mph.  Traffic typically keeps speeders in check.

The Lake Worth snowbirds celebrated their first road trip home with a final drink and dinner in Roanoke.  

Asheville Cats

You can buy all kinds of arts and crafts in Asheville's River Arts District.

Dog lovers do not despair, even if the Lovin' Spoonful never sang about you.  There's something for everybody in this very livable city.

Graffiti seems oddly out of context with trees around.

With its new motto, the River Arts District seems to be trying to overcome the perils of mass popularity.

Mountainside housing stock in West Asheville, also hip, seems plentiful.

But it will cost you to live downtown.

A street sign serendipitously led us to Riverside Cemetery.

Here's the Wolfe family plot.

Thomas, North Carolina's most famous author, lies here.

The one who wrote You Can't Go Home Again not Bonfire of the Vanities.  It was published posthumously after his death from tuberculosis at age 37.

Here's the boarding house where his mother raised him.  It features prominently in Look Homeward Angel, his first and most autobiographical novel. 

We headed back to the River Arts District to check out the shopping.  I enjoyed the remnants of the industrial past even more.

Neither of us could place these white blooms.

Bicycles galore contributed to my growing collection of images taken worldwide.

One shop offered an on-site glass blowing class.

Hand-painted ceramics and masks were available, too.

Christine lunched at the very funky Grey Eagle Taqueria.  It offers live music from an outdoor stage in the evenings.

You can't have an outdoor barbecue without this.

Definitely a weird place to find a tribute to this boxer.  Listen to the Dylan song, too.

The perfect backdrop for Christine's Mini Cooper.  As my father would have said, "It didn't miss a beat the entire trip!"

Blue Highways to Hipsterville

Blue Highways, a 1982 travel book by William Least Heat Moon, recommended getting off the freeways if you really wanted to see America.  Christine and I did exactly that with a combination of the scenic routes identified in the current edition of the Rand McNally Road Atlas and a highly recalcitrant GPS.  I had to fool it into cooperating by looking at the atlas and plugging in tiny towns off the beaten path. But the effort was more than worth it in rural Alabama.  

Northwest of Highlands, North Carolina, we discovered another Bridal Veil Falls in the Nantahala National Forest on a nail-biting, two-lane mountain highway so narrow that trucks were forbidden for 40 miles.  Heaven!

You're usually able to drive beneath the falls, but the road was closed for repairs.  I strolled instead.

GPS is much more useful when you're looking for a specific address, like the best barbecue restaurant in Asheville, our actual destination.

The food was as good as the marketing.

Try resisting dessert after walking past this display on the way to your table, where a small vase of fresh flowers awaits.

Buxton Hall, a former industrial warehouse, is located just above the railroad tracks next to the French Broad River.  Think 5 Pointz, Williamsburg or Wynwood Walls before the arrival of kudzu condos.

Buried beneath all these fixin's (waffle fries, catsup, cole slaw, corn bread and collard greens) was the most delicious pulled pork I've ever eaten!  Watch the video on the restaurant's website to find out why.  Just know the pigs are happy before they end up on your plate.  VERY happy.

The upside down carrot cake, served with caramel sauce and slightly whipped cream, occupied the last cubic inch of my stomach.

We passed a craft brew truck on our way back to the car, easily parked for free despite the Tuesday night crowd at Ruxton's.  Hipster alert!

Montgomery

We continued what Christine dubbed our "Civil Rights Tour" at the church where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the congregation from 1954 to 1960.  Alabama's Capitol and the area surrounding it were eerily deserted.

Footprints in the adjacent crosswalk commemorate nonviolent marches from Selma to Montgomery in the Sixties that led to passage of the Voting Rights Act.  

In 2013, the US Supreme Court struck down provisions of the act that monitored its implementation on the grounds that they were no longer were needed.  Chief Justice Roberts should explain that to Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia.  Her narrow loss to the white Republican candidate, who also happened to be Georgia's Secretary of State, was likely due to suppression of the African American vote by his office.  

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."  The more things change the more they stay the same.

Google offered no insight about what these crosses, planted in the lawn directly across from the Capitol, signify.  A vagrant tour hustler said they represented the increasing number of annual homicides in the city; Christine thought they might be associated with a pro-life event she'd seen advertised.  Their symbolism seemed fraught in any case, given the context.

Maya Lin designed the nearby Civil Rights Memorial.  It seems utterly genteel in comparison to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

Water washes over a granite block engraved with the names of Civil Rights martyrs and the movement's significant events.  Clearly, given the current climate, the struggle continues.

The engravings are similar to those found on the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial, also designed by Lin.