Beach walks in autumn

The summer crowds are gone, the weather is still warm, so what better place for a hike than the beach! Plus you can take your dog on most beaches between Labor Day and Memorial Day. This picture shows the north end of Virginia Beach at Fort Story where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean. Note the ships leaving the bay in the distance.

James River flows through Virginia’s Mountains

Ever notice how the terrain dips down and you just know you’ll find a river or creek before the roadway starts its climb back uphill? The Blue Ridge Parkway winds down to a bridge and wow! There is the James River. Stunning!  I turned the car around first chance I got, came back, parked and hiked out on the bridge to get this shot of the James River, which then comes to Richmond on its way to the sea.

Blue Ridge Majesty

The Blue Ridge Parkway is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year! Fall foliage season is coming up fast – here’s one of my shots from last year – so be sure to mark your calendar with some of the special anniversary events that are listed on this web site:

http://blueridgeparkway75.org/

Canoeing with Alligators

The first time my family went down the Myakka River, rumored to be teeming will alligators, we took the tour boat pictured here out of Snook Haven in Sarasota County, Florida. We didn’t see any alligators, maybe because the boat captain was a loud fellow (the dude really didn’t need to use that bull horn) so we decided to come back and rent canoes, pictured below, for a peaceful river cruise. The Myakka is a beautiful river, the scene of an original Tarzan movie (I didn’t believe the boat captain that the monkeys escaped and were still in the trees). We wanted to get up close and personal to the river life, you know, commune with nature on our own sweet time.

Yikes! The kids pushed off in one canoe before we could get ours loaded, and right away we heard them scream, followed by a big splash! They said it was a “great big” alligator on the river bank that jumped in the water while they were trying to get the hang of navigating the canoe. By the time we caught up with them, we didn’t see anything. I thought maybe their imaginations were running a bit wild after listening to the boat captain’s crazy stories. It wasn’t until the trip back hours later when we passed the same spot and I saw the alligator – a 14 foot monster!

We saw maybe a half dozen alligators that day, mostly babies and young adults. The alligators didn’t bother us and we didn’t bother them. One thing for sure, we didn’t go swimming in the river like we do when we canoe Virginia’s rivers! The turtles and the water fowl and scenery were awesome to behold but I kept scanning the river for trouble so it wasn’t quite the peaceful trip I had envisioned.

Later we went to a backwoods restaurant and what was on the menu but alligator and turtle! I ordered alligator, to complete the experience.  I’m not sure I would do either of those things again, canoe with alligators or eat them. But hey, I did it, and I’m still talking about it!

Rogue’s Point on Virginia’s Northern Neck

Rogue’s Point on the Rappahannock River is a narrow spit surrounded by water on three sides. The only way to get there is to walk or boat -- or in the case of Karen and Steve Lewis who have stables nearby -- ride horseback. I'm not sure how the folks in the cottages get their supplies there with water in front and back and no roads on the spit. I'll have to ask Karen.

I love to walk out to Rogue’s Point at low tide. There’s a steady wind -- "weather beaten" becomes an understood term. The disheveled grasses tell a tale as the wind comes across these open waters endlessly, shaping the vegetation that thrives there. So too the gentle waves lap onto shore, over and over again, washing up gnarled wood with a beauty all its own. Walks there restore the soul. There's a sense of eternal harmony.

Birds find a sanctuary on the spit and the Chesapeake Bay blue crab is plentiful there in the waters. The smell of salt is in the air on every breath you take.

According to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, in its publication on oyster harvest restrictions, Rogue’s Point is located at 37° 40.040', N., 76° 32.253', W not too many miles from the river's junction with the Chesapeake Bay.

Smoothie at Farmer’s Market in Boone, NC

Boone is a quaint college town nestled high in the Appalachian Mountains in western North Carolina not far from the Tennessee border. The town has a cool Farmer’s Market located next to a frontier park where you can visit the settlers’ original log cabins while buying local food and crafts.

The highlight of my trip there of all things was a delicious homemade natural smoothie! This smoothie was like no other – not only was it made on the spot with fresh ingredients, but it was made in a blender on a bicycle! Yes, organic goes powerless -- a bicyclist named Susan produced the power to run the blender. “Mango Smoothie” is made from the organic ingredients of coconut milk, mango and pure cane sugar, a concoction created by vendor Lisa Hummel, who also offers a choice of mango types and lets buyers add other ingredients to suit their smoothie palettes, such as dragon fruit and papaya.

The Idem - A Unique Sailing Boat in the Adirondacks

My good friend Daphne Chase Montgomery lives on an island in New York's Adirondack Mountains during the heat of each summer -- the third generation of her family to spend summers there. The only way to get to her camp is by boat, so I parked at the landing and she came and got me for a visit.

Daphne's camp is on the Upper St. Regis Lake where you'll see a boat you can find nowhere else - the Idem, a sailing sloop designed specially for sailing competitions on this lake. It was in 1899 that the St. Regis Yacht Club commissioned a young naval architect to design a class of wooden sailing sloops specifically for their winds.

Going through my pictures back home in humid Virginia, I wanted more detail on this lovely old wooden boat that we saw when cruising the lake, so I sent Daphne the picture above and got this email back: "The old boat is an IDEM - they were designed by Clinton Crane specifically for our lake, Upper St, Regis. Twelve of them were built around the turn of the century - one is on display at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake - but the others are all being sailed and right here. They are 32 feet long, with 600 square feet of sail area - gaff rigged with Egyptian cotton sails - and take a crew of 5."

And get this - the sailing competition on the Upper St. Regis Lake still takes place every year!