Evelyn’s Pantry is hometown deli on Monterey’s main street

Autumn was on full display on the patio of Evelyn’s Pantry on Monterey’s main street the last day of September 2014. The warm days of fall are an invitation.... (Photos, read more here)

Autumn afternoon road trip to apple country

Apple Country was calling this afternoon so after whittling away the morning, we decided to hit the road to Paugh’s Orchard in Shenandoah County. I’m not even sure how long it takes … maybe an hour? … but it was a sparkling sunny drive. We left.... (Photos, continue reading here)

Carter Mountain Orchard offers Virginia apples, pumpkins, and views

 

Last night’s low temperature west of Staunton was 39 degrees so today seemed perfect to visit Carter Mountain outside Charlottesville. The mountaintop orchard offers not only apples, pumpkins, gourds, and country store goods but it also provides one of the most outstanding long-range views in central Virginia — east toward Richmond and west toward.... (Photos, continue reading here)

ICYMI: Weekend posts at LynnRMitchell.com

In case you were busy over the weekend, here are the posts you missed at LynnRMitchell.com:

Augusta County residents organize against pipeline by Supervisor David Karaffa

Stand Up Paddle Boarding (SUP) on Sherando Lake by Kurt Michael

Be careful of those you trust by Jerry Lester

Rose River Farm and Cabins in Madison County, Va. by Lynn R. Mitchell

Pick-your-own grapes at Blue River Farm Vineyard in Madison County, Va. by Lynn R. Mitchell

Foggy Ridge Cider in Southwestern Virginia by Lynn R. Mitchell

Saturday morning ... rainy, cool, rocking on the porch by Lynn R. Mitchell

Fauquier GOP sues RPV and 1st District over tossed-out election by Lynn R. Mitchell

Wool Days at Frontier Culture Museum - April 16-19, 2014

Spring in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley means Wool Days at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton. The museum will shear sheep using traditional hand shears at 11:00 and 2:00 at either the English farm yard or at the 1850 American farm barn yard. There is a good chance we will shear a third sheep at 10:00 most days.   

Visitors will have the opportunity to try many activities during Wool Days. Perhaps try your hand at:

* Weaving on the Irish Farm
* Card and spin wool on the 1820s American Farm
* Help sort and scour wool at the English Farm
* Process flax on the German Farm
* Touch flax, wool, and sheep

It's sunny with comfortably cool temps in the 50s and 60s this week ... come on out and join costumed interpreters as they relive life as it was in earlier days of America.

Today at Wintergreen: 8th Annual Blue Ridge Mountian Music Festival

8th Annual Blue Ridge Mountain Music Festival
August 17
12-7 pm
Dunlop Pavilion, Wintergreen Resort

The weather's perfect for today's Blue Ridge Mountain Music Fest at Wintergreen. Sunny skies, cool temps, low humidity ... a great day to head to the mountains.

Celebrating our mountain heritage, Wintergreen Performing Arts presents the 8th Annual Blue Ridge Mountain Music Fest. This year the Fest features the return of the always popular Robin and Linda Williams and Their Fine Group and the Grammy-nominated marquee bluegrass group, Blue Highway. Rounding out the program, we welcome Honey Dewdrops as well as Kim and Jimbo Cary & Peter and Ellen Vigour.

Schedule:

12 pm Honey Dewdrops
1 pm Blue Highway
2 pm Robin and Linda Williams and their Fine Group
3 pm Honey Dewdrops
4 pm Blue Highway
5 pm Robin and Linda Williams and their Fine Group
6 pm  Kim & Jimbo Cary and Peter & Ellen Vigour

Join us for a toe tapping good time!

Wintergreen: 8th Annual Blue Ridge Mountian Music Festival this weekend

8th Annual Blue Ridge Mountain Music Festival
August 17
12-7 pm
Dunlop Pavilion, Wintergreen Resort

Celebrating our mountain heritage, Wintergreen Performing Arts presents the 8th Annual Blue Ridge Mountain Music Fest. This year the Fest features the return of the always popular Robin and Linda Williams and Their Fine Group and the Grammy-nominated marquee bluegrass group, Blue Highway. Rounding out the program, we welcome Honey Dewdrops as well as Kim and Jimbo Cary & Peter and Ellen Vigour.

Schedule:

12 pm Honey Dewdrops
1 pm Blue Highway
2 pm Robin and Linda Williams and their Fine Group
3 pm Honey Dewdrops
4 pm Blue Highway
5 pm Robin and Linda Williams and their Fine Group
6 pm  Kim & Jimbo Cary and Peter & Ellen Vigour

Join us for a toe tapping good time!

Saturday: Shenandoah National Park neighbors enjoy free admission

 June 14, 2013 ... mountain laurel is in full bloom along Skyline Drive.

Tomorrow -- Saturday, June 15 -- residents from AUGUSTA, Albemarle, Greene, Madison, Nelson, Page, Rappahannock, Rockingham, and Warren Counties receive free admission to Shenandoah National Park in honor of Neighbor Appreciation Day plus discounts on items in the bookstores and on some items in gift shops and restaurants.

DNC, the park's official concessioner, plans to provide a 10% discount on select items in their retail stores and a 10% discount on food and some beverage items at all their restaurants. The Shenandoah National Park Association, which supports the interpretive and educational activities of Shenandoah National Park, will offer a 20% discount on all items in their bookstores located in the Dickey Ridge and Byrd Visitor Centers.

Visitors wishing to take advantage of these discounts will be required to show proof of residency by showing their Virginia driver's license.

A trip along the Skyline Drive on Friday was filled with wildflowers and mountain laurel blooming in profusion throughout the Park. With comfortable temperatures and low humidity, Saturday should be a perfect day to visit.

Photo by Lynn R. Mitchell
Shenandoah National Park
June 14, 2013

Sally Landes: Lady of the English house at Frontier Culture Museum

 On Wednesday, Sally Landes was making cheese at the English house at the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia located in Staunton. Sally and I first met as homeschool moms about 16 years ago when our daughters were in the same gymnastics class. That was before I got to knew her brother-in-law, Delegate Steve Landes, through local politics. She is one of the costumed historical interpreters at the Museum.

When visiting the English farm, look for the smiling face under the bonnet and you'll find Sally. She may be baking in the kitchen or sheering sheep or making cheese but whatever she's doing, she often invites onlookers to participate. Children first wash their hands in her "kitchen sink," then help measure or stir ingredients for whatever she's baking. Food ingredients are collected on the farm -- yesterday's cheese was made from cow and/or goat milk from the animals that live at the museum. It's a fascinating experience, and Friday, June 7, will be FREE admission from 6-8:00 p.m., which offers the opportunity to visit and see what everyone is talking about.

Photos by Lynn R. Mitchell
June 5, 2013

Spring welcomes visitors to Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia

The Bradford pears that line the entrance to Staunton's Frontier Culture Museum are in full bloom, welcoming visitors to this unique outdoor, hands-on museum featuring early American history:

The Frontier Culture Museum tells the story of the thousands of people who migrated to colonial America, and of the life they created here for themselves and their descendents. These first pioneers came to America during the 1600s and 1700s from communities in the hinterlands of England, Germany, Ireland, and West Africa. Many were farmers and rural craftsmen set in motion by changing conditions in their homelands, and drawn to the American colonies by opportunities for a better life. Others came as unwilling captives to work on farms and plantations. Regardless of how they arrived, all became Americans, and all contributed to the success of the colonies, and of the United States.

To tell the story of these early immigrants and their American descendents, the Museum has moved or reproduced examples of traditional rural buildings from England, Germany, Ireland, West Africa, and America. The Museum engages the public at these exhibits with a combination of interpretive signage and living history demonstrations. The outdoor exhibits are located in two separate areas: the Old World and America. The Old World exhibits show rural life and culture in four homelands of early migrants to the American colonies. The American exhibits show the life these colonists and their descendents created in the colonial backcountry, how this life changed over more than a century, and how life in the United States today is shaped by its frontier past.

www.FrontierMuseum.org

Photo by Lynn R. Mitchell
April 12, 2013

2013 Snowy Highland Maple Festival ... Monterey ... photos # 1

 Monterey, Virginia.

The first day of the 2013 Highland Maple Festival on March 9, 2013.

For information about the Festival: Highland County Chamber of Commerce

 Staunton's Frontier Culture Museum was selling their famous fudge.

Highland High School was the site of arts & crafts as well as pancake dinners and more.

Photos by Lynn R. Mitchell
March 9, 2013

Spring has arrived at Blue Ridge Parkway's Humpback Rock Farm

Steps to the past ...

It was a nice day -- temps in upper 70s -- to visit Humpback Rock Farm with spring blossoms and flowering trees. It's not officially open yet for the tourist season -- the Visitor Center is scheduled to open in a couple of weeks and the farmstead's reenactors will return Memorial Day -- but that made it even nicer because we had it to ourselves.

The white blossoms of Virginia's state tree, the dogwood, could be seen at the farmstead and throughout the wooded mountainsides.

I don't know what this beautiful pink blooming bush is ... anyone know?

Dogwood blossoms

There were dozens of bicyclists on the Parkway and at Afton Mountain overlook.

Howardsville Turnpike offered the road less traveled....

Photos by Lynn R. Mitchell
16 April 2012

2012 prescribed burns planned for Shenandoah National Park; reconstruction of some overlooks

If the proper conditions present themselves, the National Park Service is planning prescribed burns in Shenandoah National Park to reduce fuel on the ground and enhance yellow pine and oak communities that require fire to regenerate. Some trails may be closed during the burns.

At Jarman Gap northeast of Waynesboro, 500 acres will be burned over the course of several days in the areas between Sawmill Run Overlook and Jarman Gap.

Portions of Big Meadows, the open area across from Byrd Visitor Center, are burned each year. If it hasn't already taken place, approximately 35 acres will be burned this month in the eastern portion of the field for the purpose of maintaining the open vista by preventing encroachment by woody species.

As part of an ongoing project, the park will use fire to maintain open vistas by preventing encroachment by woody species at many scenic locations along Skyline Drive. Park staff plan to burn three to four vistas this year.

Overlook construction:
The Appalachian Trail will undergo some temporary relocations this season due to reconstruction of some overlooks along the Skyline Drive.

- Ivy Creek Overlook, at milepost 77.5, which the A.T. traverses, will be closed for construction from now until further notice. A planned temporary relocation of the A.T. around the overlook is in place approximately 30 yards north and south of the overlook, and follows a route on the west side of Skyline Drive marked by white blazed carsonite markers for approximately 100 yards.

- Horsehead Mountain and Rip Rap Overlooks are sometimes used to access the A.T. as well. Starting in late June or early July those overlooks will be reconstructed and parking will be unavailable for two to three months.

Dark Hollow Falls trail will be closed April 9-12 for reconstruction of the upper trail. See here for more information.

Spring 2012 openings are already underway in the Park. See here for opening information about campgrounds, lodges, and picnic areas.

Photo by Lynn R. Mitchell

Travel & Leisure magazine names Skyline Drive one of America's best spring drives

Travel and Leisure magazine named Virginia's Skyline Drive as one of America's best spring drives. Here's what they had to say about the Blue Ridge Mountain jewel:

Skyline Drive, Virginia

The Route: 105 miles.
This route stretches through Shenandoah National Park, end-to-end, with the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains and more than 1,300 species of plants. Warm weather brings purple and yellow violets; by May, pink azaleas appear throughout the forest, followed by white flowers of mountain laurel in early June.

Where to Stop: Shenandoah National Park hosts its annual Wildflower Weekend from May 5 to 6, 2012, featuring special talks and guided nature hikes showcasing local wildlife.

With twenty-four scenic drives listed from throughout the nation, the others in our immediate vicinity include the Newfound Gap Road in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park between Tennessee/North Carolina, the 25-mile George Washington Memorial Parkway between Maryland and Virginia, and the 120-mile Cherokee Scenic Highway in South Carolina,

Virginia: Waynesboro's Ridgeview Park on the South River

 Banners in downtown Waynesboro welcome visitors and residents to this city on the South River.

Photos by Lynn R. Mitchell
30 March 2012

Virginia: Waynesboro's Constitution Park & Greenway Trail along the South River

At Waynesboro's Constitution Park, located along the banks of the South River, the apple trees were in full bloom today. Combined with the brilliant red buds in full bloom and the deep green grass, it was a beautiful sight. (I think these are apple trees. Anyone?)

Dominion's pavilion offers sheltered picnic tables for family picnics or a quick lunch time break.

Located in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah National Park, Skyline Drive, and the Blue Ridge Parkway, Waynesboro was recently designated an Appalachian Trail Community.

Thank you, Boy Scout Brad Moser. Your benches were used by walkers who took a moment to rest and take in the surrounding beauty of the mountains and the river.

The South River is a well-known fishing spot for many in this area and beyond. Waynesboro's annual Fly Fishing Festival is the largest in the country and will be held this year from April 21-22, 2012.

Aren't these blossoms beautiful? You should have seen them in person.  :)

The Greenway Trail, a paved, level pathway that runs along the South River, was a dream for years. The first eight-tenths of a mile phase finally opened in March 2012 as part of what will one day be a 5.6-mile trail.

Rollerskating ... now that's one way to walk the dogs!

There are plenty of benches along the river to stop and smell the roses or, in this case, the apple blossoms.

Photos by Lynn R. Mitchell
30 March 2012