John Denver’s been gone more than twenty-five years. I’ll be the first to admit that his classic ballad, Take Me Home, Country Roads, still makes me a bit weepy. Riding the Blue Ridge Parkway, getting high, rolling the windows down and singing that number at the top of your lungs was certainly a right of passage for any self-respecting southern lad. Before we let too much air blow through the revolutionary locks of the early seventies, let’s push up our wire-rims and dust off our bell-bottom jeans. And focus on where we are now. How far we have come.
As the Buck Moon reaches its climax I decided to celebrate by taking a stroll on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Mile Marker 334. Blue Ridge Parkway. Little Switzerland, NC. 7/10/2025
Hurricane Helene blew a path of devastation through western North Carolina in September 2024. The storm was like nothing anyone had seen before. Record flooding loosened the soil and allowed the fierce winds to blow down hundreds of thousands of trees. Oak, Poplar, Locust and every other mountain species fell.
South of Little Switzerland, NC on the Blue Ridge Parkway. 7/10/2025
The world-famous Blue Ridge Parkway is the life-blood of Western North Carolina. It is a National Park. The most visited National Park in the country. Construction began building the parkway in 1935. It was part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. The concept was to offer an economic boost to an historically depressed area of Appalachia. The road was designed to connect the Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks.
The road travels the crest of one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. It offers breathtaking scenic views of a part of the world that was historically tough to navigate. Fascinating native flowers and brilliantly colored fall foliage bring bumper-to-bumper tourists to the lonesome mountains. The adventurous traveler is met with cool mountain air and clear rock-lined streams.
Of course, Keynesian economic theory is far from fashionable in twenty-first century United States of America. The idea of spending government money to boost the economy certainly transformed the rural south during the Great Depression. Once isolated citizens were offered not only paths off the mountain but also electricity. Life became a bit less difficult.
That theory along with the resulting prosperity for the less fortunate has been thrown off a cliff and replaced with a winner-take-all gameshow based economic model.
Ironically, interest in the economic incentives for building the parkway and maintaining our vast National Parks has waned. Now budgets are slashed and that worthy investment that trademarked twentieth century America has gone for naught. Many sections of the once impeccably maintained Blue Ridge Parkway have been left to ruin. The once beautiful is now a dystopian vista. Cormac McCarthy would be impressed.
Oxeye Daisy on the Blue Ridge Parkway. 7/10/2025
This morning, the section of parkway between Little Switzerland and Hwy 80 sits pretty much the way it was eight months ago. Detritus litters the shoulders. Vines and moss creep over the tarmac. But as an armchair naturalist I am heartened by what I see. Left with no human maintenance the margins of the road are growing and blooming with a plethora of native wild flowers.
Left to their own devices the shining stars of Appalachia put on a show. There’s a Bible verse somewhere that says something about the meek inheriting the earth. I’m afraid that reality is, when looking at our species, neither meek nor strong will have a chance. We have made such a mess of things why should we be allowed to continue?
I do feel hopeless thinking about funding for our National Parks and our public lands. Regardless, please write your representatives and let them know that public access to wild spaces matters not only to you but to your progeny.
Thanks for sharing, Jim. It's been too long since I've been up in those mountains.