Blue Ridge blog

Blue Ridge blog: "I walked along the Watauga River this morning before heading to work. I think I was trespassing, but only the birds noticed. This is the view of the Mast Farm Inn from the river. Actually this is the barn and the grainery. Forget cereal. This is the way to start your day..."

I wish I could show Marie's photo…since I can’t you’ll have to follow the link yourself. I have to agree about a walk along the river being the way to start the day…The play of light on the farm is gorgeous.

Valle Crucis…my dreams continue to return there. I can’t wait to return for a week again this summer. Mornings on the porch with a cup of coffee looking out over Clarks Creek…hikes up the knob…days that don’t try to steam you until you’re cooked.

This year we are planning our trip to coincide with the Highland Games on Grandfather Mountain. Seems my wife really wants to experience the reality of the Scottish Culture, and to think I’m the one with the Scottish ancestry…I am really going to have to try and swing by the old home place out of Vilas, though after a couple of hundred years it might be a little hard to find. At least I should be able to cruise the creek they named after the family before most of them headed over the mountains into Tennessee. Great-great-great grandpa James Linville was born there on the 15th of July in 1794. Shortly after the turn of the century his family had migrated on over the mountains and he lived most of his life in north western Missouri where he died in 1873.