A steep mountain knoll holds a narrow path, in places becoming grown over from lack of use. The grasses and groundcover foliage are all brilliant emerald to chartreuse greens, wet with fog and cloud mists. Trees in the distance recede into these mists. In August, in these mountains, all things are bathed in mists. "The wizened emerald path," from the Parkways Projects. A remembrance of place and time—and being. In that year, August 2019, especially the memories of the year 1969, when I first hiked this trail while my family enjoyed their picnic lunch.

"Where there is a way or path, it is someone else's path."
#JosephCampbell

“The wizened emerald path” #TomOgburn #Photography #Stunday 🦋 #EastCoastKin #TheBlueridgeParkway
#Landscape #DigitalPhoto #BlueskyPhotography #Skyart #BlueskyArt #DigitalArt #BlueRidgeParkwayNP #Art #SkylineDriveParkwayNP

"Flyer, flyer, brakes on fire!" My 2005 Jeep Liberty is a heavy little devil, what with one-quarter inch plate steel protecting the undercarriage, plus, a payload on that particular trip which did not anticipate 8 to 10 degree downward inclines with very few switchbacks. As in two switchbacks over the course of four miles. I was reminded of two separate trips, two separate cars, on the parkway, the first in the spring of 1962 in a 1958 Ford Fairlane, and then our first camping trailer haul from 1968. The Ford was just too heavy of a vehicle for such lightweight brakes; The 1963 Impala, a much larger engine but lighter vehicle, was fine until we towed an all steel and plywood camping trailer proudly handbuilt and loaded to the gills by my father into some steep terrain that year. Both memories still carry weight. This sign stands in the middle of Vesuvius for the wary traveler to be enlightened by what to expect, and what not to consider likely. "No through trucks" is never a good sign, literally. I've lived in three towns with those signs. They mean business. Add to that daunting awareness this second, most peculiar to the grid today admonition "GPS Routing Not Advised," and there you have a virtual "Twilight Zone" reception just about to go all rogue on your happy little trip, one way, or the other. There is nothing, nothing, nothing more memorable that smoke billowing from four brake drums, all brand newly installed just 400 miles away in the South Carolina lowcountry up until my arrival in Vesuvius. "'Nuff Said." ≈ Sam Elliott, in just about every film the man has ever made. Still, it is a happy note to end upon, to know that understatement in very unique official travel advisory signs still exist in this day and time of all things ordinary.

The most stunning descent into Vesuvius Virginia

“No Kidding!” #TomOgburn #Photography #VesuviusVA
#Stunday 🦋 #EastCoastKin #Landscape #DigitalPhoto
#BlueskyPhotography #Skyart #BlueskyArt #DigitalArt
#BlueRidgeParkwayNP #SkylineDriveParkwayNP #Art
To see my mutlimedia work @bardicarts.bsky.social

Soon I'll be heading up to the Parkways in two months I've never visited before to the best of my recollection. By the ides of April I can't make that statement, for I have a vague memory of watching the vistas herald pass from the windows of our Ford Fairlane, which places this pensieve strand ethereally before September 1962. Cold was a factor as was engine size. My guess is we traveled from Tweetsie Railroad to Little Switzerland & headed south on the Parkway. There's no one left to confirm my speculation now; all the more reason to make it so. On the grassy overlook shoulders exist old, weathered concrete posts which stand as sentinels. They are poured forms, using aggregate crushed gravel with two odd horizontal slots about 3 inches wide & 1 inch high. They make for interesting subjects against the sky. These are the seemingly insignificant features that intrigue me as a person who has memories of these two ribbons in the sky connecting The Great Smoky Mountains National Park of Western North Carolina to the upper border of the Skyline Drive, begun in 1934 as part of the Franklln D. Roosevelt administration’s earlier public works projects. I call these henges, but that not what they are. They are not mile markers. They aren't hitching posts although four people insisted that was the original purpose. They're up on both the Parkways. I think I saw 9-10. Actually they may have only been on the Skyline Drive Parkway. I think they may have been posts to chain the old round trashcans to keep the bears from spreading trash everywhere? I like to consider them to be old standing stones. These posts vary between pale silver gray to medium gray and tan. This one is standing on a healthy patch of grassy overlook with a view far down into a valley. I think this might have been in Virginia. The sky is clouded with almost luminescent pale-blue light, almost glowing from above. The sky in the far background is free of clouds, offering a calm & serene sense of age.

“No Henge but Sunset” #TomOgburn #Photography
#Stunday 🦋 #EastCoastKin #Landscape #DigitalPhoto
#BlueskyPhotography #Skyart #BlueskyArt #DigitalArt #BlueRidgeParkwayNP #SkylineDriveParkwayNP #Art
To see my mutlimedia work: @bardicarts.bsky.social

The Parkways Projects 1934≈to Now (@parkwaysprojects.bsky.social) A little kid revisits Appalachia 50 years later in this dedicated project series: ➿Photography➿Digital Art➿Collage➿ #EastCoastKin A tribute focusing on GSMNP, Blue Ridge➿Skyline Drive Parkways & SNP....

“Silohenge,” digital photograph 'The Parkways Projects.'🦋
A dedicated multi-tiered project with 7 series of works focused on 1 massive thing: The history of the NPS effort to build a unique #NationalParks complex. #EastCoastKin
#ShenandoahNP #SkylineDriveNP #BlueRidgeParkwayNP #GreatSmokyMountainsNP