Author explores the many scenic sites of the Blue Ridge Parkway in new book
ROANOKE, Va. – It all started 75 years ago, in the midst of the Great Depression.
Right on the North Carolina-Virginia border, the ground broke on Sept. 11, 1935 to build the Blue Ridge Parkway on the state line at Cumberland Knob.
But this was not like other roads, built simply for transportation. This was a ridge-top ride made to cruise – with views.
“The parkway is a road that’s designed to be an experience,” said Cara Ellen Modisett. “Stanley Abbott and the [other] landscape architects who came after him had aesthetic goals in mind with every tree they planted, every tunnel that was built, every overlook placed.”
Modisett, of Roanoke, Va., is the editor of Blue Ridge Country magazine and co-author of the recently released “Blue Ridge Parkway: Simply Beautiful” (Farcountry Press, $32.95).
‘WHERE YOU’RE GOING’
For years, Modisett has studied and written about the Blue Ridge Parkway’s history, spinning tales of how it links Virginia to North Carolina across 469 miles – “or 470, depending on how you count it,” Modisett said.
What does Modisett like most?
“I love that it’s not a traditional park – with [an] entrance and exit and a big nebulous of land,” Modisett said. “It’s a road, so one’s experience of the Blue Ridge Parkway park – or, officially, unit of the National Park Service – always involves movement, destinations, where you’ve been, where you’re going.”
“Blue Ridge Parkway: Simply Beautiful” marks the second time Modisett has teamed up to produce a book with husband-and-wife photography team Pat and Chuck Blackley of Staunton, Va.
In Galax, Va., at a book signing in 2009, the Blackleys said working on books about the parkway gives them a great amount of satisfaction.
Modisett agreed.
“I love burying myself in parkway history and travel books, researching and getting the chance to wax a little poetic about what’s wonderful on the parkway,” Modisett said.
Still, for Modisett, there was more to this book than just taking on another assignment.
Both “Blue Ridge Parkway: Simply Beautiful” – and an earlier book with the Blackleys, “Blue Ridge Parkway: Impressions” (Farcountry Press, $9.95) – had been designed as fundraisers for the Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a nonprofit organization that Modisett has helped and admired for years, she said.
‘NATURAL LANDSCAPE’
In 120 pages, “Blue Ridge Parkway: Simply Beautiful” profiles places like the Peaks of Otter in Virginia, the Mabry Mill near U.S. Highway 58 and the allegedly-haunted Moses H. Cone Memorial Park of North Carolina.
The Blackleys showcase sunrises and sunsets plus a turtle, a rabbit, a deer and a squirrel. The pair follows trails and goes just off the road, finding the Linville Falls of North Carolina and an antique store at Meadows of Dan, Va.
“The park that is the Blue Ridge Parkway is not just what’s inside the official boundaries, but what you see beyond them,” Modisett said. “An important point that’s often made is that the parkway is not a natural landscape – there was, and continues to be, a vision behind it.”
What’s that?
Well, indeed, it begins with the notion of slowing down – and obeying the parkway’s 45 mph speed limit.
Then smell the honeysuckle, listen to the falls called Crabtree and watch the sunrise at Tye River Gap.
“The 45-mile-per-hour speed limit is partly about safety, partly about that aesthetic,” Modisett said. “If you drive faster, you’ll miss the deliberately framed views – the rhythm of meadow and forest.”
YOU SHOULD KNOW
What: “Blue Ridge Parkway: Simply Beautiful”
Price: $32.95
Info: (800) 821-3874
Web: www.farcountrypress.com
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