Valle Crucis

I enjoy taking road trips for a vacation, and alone among people who choose to live in the Florida Keys, home of walking and cycling and swimming, I actually like to drive. Perhaps because of that I find it frustrating to be driving on vacation in a lost corner of North Carolina where the speed limits are actually higher than I can safely drive. This couple out for a gentle tour in their elderly VW outstripped me easily on the twists and turns of 55mph Highway 80 between Celo and Micaville. My brother in law says the local joke is that a Florida tag on a vehicle like mine is a warning to locals that the operator can't drive. Charmed I'm sure.this vacation day started like the others, a dawn walk for Bob's dog Mason and Cheyenne followed by crunchy breakfast al fresco and then off to see the sights. Mason does not like to ride so he stayed home. We were off to see the improbably named Vale of the Cross, an obscure Shangri La tucked away in the mountains near the city of Boone, an hour north of where we were.I had been hunting for a photo blog of the area around Celo when I came across this website some years ago and well worth a read: http://blueridgeblog.blogs.com/blue_ridge_blog/ It's the work of a professional photographer associated with the nearby University and thus it is full of misty winter mornings and mellow fruitfulness...

It is June. Summer has hit the Valle. For me it's about lifting morning fogs, hay cuttin' during the day then sipping (moonshine) wine on the porch in the evenings... Oh how I love living the unfettered life here.
...and rather short on gritty details about life in this mysterious valley. I have long wanted to know more.It turns out that this Vale has more in common with the Keys than you'd think, namely a solitary main road winding through the place. And unlike the Overseas Highway there aren't any turn outs here to stop and take in the views. Mobile photography is the order of the day.

Except when it's time to go shopping. This is the Annex to the original Mast store named I believe for one W. W. Mast who bought out a share of the existing Taylor store at this location. The mast store was famous for providing everything a local family might need and for extending credit and bartering, all skills and decencies likely to be critical once again in this our 21st century Great Depression. A California family bought the store when the mast family pooped out in 1980 and have added outlets elsewhere. We shopped at the store in Asheville known rather grandly as outfitter's in the manner of a gentleman's haberdashery to voyages of exploration in a Victorian vein. I expected the mast store to expose me to groups of Arctic veterans mulling over their choices of crampons and carabiners but I found the usual clumps of yuppie suburban shoppers buying water bottles and name brand running shoes. The Mast Annex in Valle Crucis deals in organics and candies and pickled vegetables, suitable fare for dandified tourists.The floppy hat brigade was out in force.

We got pickled beans and chocolate malted balls, dark for her, milk for moi.

And jam. And some weird cheese spread. nothing much you understand, about fifty dollars worth. This is supposed to be a cheap vacation but the wife loves to surprise guests at parties with peculiar foods. I have been bummed about not going to New England this year but to my surprise there it was outside the Mast store.And these are day lilies my Brother in Law tells me. They are called that because that is probably what they are, though not being a botanist he could have been pulling my leg. I am left to wonder what night lilies look like.
eager to hunt down the secrets of this mysterious place we got in the car and took our lives in our hands, checking out the farming life.
Local pick up trucks are extremely busy it turns out and drive like the hounds of hell are on their tails. There is a total absence of No Trespassing signs around here, which is very disturbing to someone from the Florida Keys which ugly signs abound like mosquitoes after a rainstorm.

This looks likely to be some illegal immigrant picking up his welfare check in the blazing sun.

I'm going to stick my neck out and guess he doesn't swindle the government enough to be able to afford this rather attractive home. I look forward to eating his boss's carrots though.

I wanted to query a local about this sign but in our headlong rush we met none. I wonder why they feel the need to keep their ice outside their freezers?

I confess, Valle Crucis managed to keep it's deep dark secrets from me and we blasted on out of the valley none the wiser about the place.

I dare say locals like to keep it that way. Lucky them. Except I expect their ice has all melted by now.

Walking Big Coppitt

Fried chicken and gasoline at Mile Marker 10, and the secret side streets of Big Coppitt are there to be explored.Cheyenne is learning to stick to the shady side of the street as we go exploring in the middle of the day.
Big Coppitt is an island where working people can find somewhere reasonably affordable, by local standards, to live. The side streets also offer space for the shade tree mechanic to ply his trade.

Despite the abundance of off street parking here there is a bit of an obsession with parking on Big Coppitt.I guess strangers have muscled their way onto this street in the past and chosen this lot to turn around, to someone's apparent discomfort. You can park here as this one's for sale.
Not here though. Not anywhere near here.
The big house on the little prairie. At first I thought it was s a shuttered snowbird home but close up I found a For Sale sign.Wild pit bull anxious to make Cheyenne's acquaintance. She ignored him, as usual.
She must have read the sign. Personally I'll bet he's a sweet dog, just never walked and not much loved. Just chained to the porch all day and bored.Think of this as camouflaged not abandoned.

Poinciana shade.I've seen these plastic owls used to frighten off birds from boats in the marina. Never before seen to frighten off birds from parked cars. Immobile cars more like. No parking- and if you were thinking about it the space has been shut out with strategically placed cement blocks. I find it odd that outside spaces are used to pile junk, not to make outdoor living pleasant.

It's tough to make ends meet in the Keys and short cuts are sometimes the only way to keep going. Pepto Bismol home next to sky blue home for sale. More signs.Beware of the cat more like.

Mobile home rendered immobile.

Waterfront home exhibiting signs of permanence behind the privacy hedge. The alarm company sign and the Private Property sign leave no doubt that this hedge is hiding...private property.And at last we reached the dead end, marked for some extraordinary reason by a yellow road work light on a stand.

"Use beach at own risk" said an ancient sign mostly buried in the sand. So we did, because we are daredevils, Cheyenne and I.

Celo Farming

Every time I see their home, Bob and Geeta put me in mind of Hansel and Gretel tucked away in the woods.This year with the increasing bad news on the financial, ecological and social fronts this place seems more like a refuge. Bob and Geeta live on very little, the home they built themselves decades ago is supplied with well water and is heated in winter with wood they cut themselves. They are growing their own fruits and vegetables and live in a valley surrounded by like minded peaceable neighbors. Unemployment, failed oil wells and falling housing markets seem a world away. At the end of a very long gravel driveway.They live in the shadow of Mount Mitchell, the highest point in the eastern United States an hour north of Asheville, the commercial hub of these Appalachian Mountains. Geeta still works from time to time as a General practice doctor, filling in for colleagues when she wants to pay for a trip while Bob ruminates on philosophy and societal collapse after a career teaching at University. This winter Geeta returns to India to work among women who don't frequently get first world medical care while bob will stay home to stoke the home fire and read and watch the frost settle on these leafless woods.The main road into Celo off State Highway 80 is a public road, county maintained but the web of gravel roads criss crossing the community lands are private and once a year the community meeting has to record that the road was closed for a day to maintain that private status. They use this saw horse to block the road as needed by law:
The community has been overrun by deer and at a meeting recently the consensus was that deer hunting should be allowed, though not with firearms. Bob shook his head, " I never thought I'd see the deer we would allow deer hunting in any form," the pacifist admitted. But the deer are doing so well they are interfering with crops. Our failing economy isn't hurting them, though they should be aware that even Geeta the vegetarian is considering the possibility of having to eat their meat if food deliveries of vegetarian proteins is ever interrupted. I never thought I'd hear those words pass her lips. The stock market my be gyrating wildly but when my sister in law treats the possibility of industrial collapse seriously I know the world as we know it is in trouble.I met a young man in a monkish robe moving this electric fence to give the sheep fresh pastures."learning as I go," he said smiling. I complemented him on his flock. they are active and healthy and alert so he can't be doing much wrong. Milk wool and ...meat, on the hoof, here sheltering in the shade from a merciless and unusual 95 degree sun. A couple of years ago the word came that all these unnamed streets had to be given names and numbers "to help emergency services locate residents needing help." It seems to most people that the sudden sprouting of silly street names across rural North Carolina has more to do with the ominous needs of Homeland Security, that Orwellian national insecurity organization, than any need for fire engines to find their way. Nevertheless the street names have sprouted obediently.

From the school's website: The Arthur Morgan School (AMS) provides a safe and loving environment where 27 day and boarding school students in grades 7, 8 and 9 learn to question and evaluate, think creatively and work cooperatively. A low student/teacher ratio ensures individualized instruction and guidance. Students and staff honor the Quaker values of simplicity, responsibility, service, personal integrity, nonviolent conflict resolution and respect for self, others and the environment.

Not a bad place to learn you'd think. And the ride to school, in summer at least, is ideal.there are two school buses as needed.

Celo is also a working farm and community member share chores in the various fields and storage areas.

Then there is summer camp for 35 youngsters. For over fifty years the Barrus family has welcomed campers to join us for the summer on the Camp Celo farm. The farm setting provides the basis for much of the camp activity with the children caring for animals and harvesting in the garden. There is hiking and camping in the surrounding forests and mountains, and swimming and tubing on the South Toe River. Activities include arts & crafts, skits, wood shop, nature appreciation and big group games. The heatwave this summer has taken everyone by surprise though a very cold winter followed by an excessively hot summer is not an impossible scenario predicted by climate change scientists. In these mountains temperatures every day around 100 degrees will take some getting used to in summer.Cows are part of the farm though they, like the sheep are looking for refreshment by late morning.

Homes in the community reflect individual tastes and though this is a backwoods world they are served by power and light. I remember when I arrived for the first time at Bob and Geeta's home late one night after a harrowing drive along dark mountain lanes, unsure of my destination and uncertain at each intersection, I stumbled out of my van and entered their little mountain hideaway. It is a measure of my confusion that I was astonished to hear a telephone ring (the same phone I had spoken with them numerous times). It seemed such an unlikely modern instrument in such a setting.

there is a waiting list to join the community these days and the enterprise, if it can be called by such a commercial title, is flourishing. City slickers are learning to go back to the land and do it cooperatively.

Food is growing...

...in scenes of rural serenity that seem stolen from a previous age.

With modern intrusions.

Some of them meet to quake in the sight of the Lord, with their Homeland approved street sign.

And the outside world hardly intrudes at all.

I miss my blue ocean waters,oil free and ready for swimming.