High on the Blue Ridge

The Blue Ridge means a lot of things to a lot of people. 

This mountainous region, centered on western North Carolina, stretching from north Georgia to and encompassing chunks of Tennessee, South Carolina, and Virginia, looms large as a vacation getaway destination for Southwest Florida residents, but visitors go there looking for and finding a wide range of experiences.

The Blue Ridge means hiking, backpacking, and camping on the Appalachian Trail or day treks in the hills. It means whitewater canoeing, kayaking, or rafting on swift-running rivers such as the Nantahala, Ocoee, and the French Broad. It means waterfalls, with dozens in the Asheville area alone, offering the chance to cool off after those hikes. The Blue Ridge means sightseeing, driving the famed Blue Ridge Parkway, with spectacular views from a road constructed on the crests of the mountains for hundreds of miles, or meandering along unheralded byways with their own quiet charms. 

The Blue Ridge means music, whether a bluegrass hoedown heavy on banjos and fiddles, guitar-driven country and Southern rock or the refined strains of classical ensembles at venues such as the Brevard Music Center. The Blue Ridge means beer, with producers from a host of microbreweries all the way up to the macrobreweries, including the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. facility in Mills River outside Asheville, the Disney World of breweries. 

The Blue Ridge means sightseeing, with attractions like the Biltmore Estate offering a glimpse of how the other half from another era spent their “robber baron” wealth, the Tweetsie Railroad in Blowing Rock, and an entire Bavarian town seemingly transported to the New World in Helen, Georgia, plus Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Rockies at 6,684 feet. 

The Blue Ridge means food, with everything from fine dining at elegant restaurants to fresh grilled mountain trout and world-class barbecue – or “BBQ,” in the preferred local rendering – at roadside stands or the famous 12 Bones Smokehouse. 

The Blue Ridge means crafts, with weaving, pottery, woodcarving, and glass blowing, as well as dozens of fine art galleries. It means antiquing, with finds from a century ago at reasonable prices. It means golf. It means accommodations ranging from creekside campgrounds to sophisticated hotels like the Grove Park Inn and friendly bed and breakfasts. In the fall, the Blue Ridge means “leaf peeping,” watching the annual spectacle of the changing of the leaves. 

The Blue Ridge means history, boasting names such as Vanderbilt, Fredrick Law Olmsted, O. Henry, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the “Singing Brakeman” Jimmy Rodgers, O. Henry, and Thomas Wolfe, and a downtown Asheville featuring landmarks like the Grove Arcade and the original Woolworth’s lunch counter and soda fountain.

For Marco Islanders, the Blue Ridge means escape, a chance to leave behind the stifling humidity and torrential thunderstorms of a Southwest Florida summer to cool off at thousands of feet higher in elevation, just a (long) day’s drive north on I-75. 

But most of all, and at the heart of its attraction, the Blue Ridge means mountains. The breathtaking natural beauty is heightened by the height of the terrain, speaking to something within the soul of those of us who came from somewhere other than the pancake-flat topography of South Florida. Don’t get me wrong – there is a lot to love and a tremendous amount of natural beauty to enjoy right here in and around Marco Island. Like the readers of this newspaper, we have voted with our feet and have made this area our longtime home. 

But the mountains call me back, with a siren song, causing a regular migration, to paraphrase that noted Floridian Jimmy Buffett, “from the islands to the highlands.” The twisty roads that really mean it when they post the signs with the squiggly arrows and the advice to keep your speed to 35, 25, or even 15 miles per hour are something I cherish, and look forward to the chance to return. And every time I depart the Blue Ridge heading home and see the mountaintops diminishing in the rearview mirror, I ask myself, “Why?”