16.08.2012 – 16.08.2012  28 °C

Another foggy start to the day today. With the weather so closed in we decided to head down into the Shenandoah Valley to hopefully find some warmer and drier weather. On the way down to the valley we noticed we were heading to Harrisonburg where we knew the local fair was taking place, so we detoured and headed into the town.

So, US country fair….. Its easiest to describe it as exactly the same as an Aussie country fair! No joke, we even knew where to find stuff in the fair ground. We went into the stock sheds to look at cows and pigs and goats and stuff. Most of the animals were just what you would see at home except the sheepies. The sheepies here were all shorn (to start with) and had boggly eyes and brown faces.. Quite different to anything I had seen before..

Anyway, we watched a bit of the judging for the prize pig and goat (excitement plus) and were rewarded by seeing “Miss Harrisonburg” (or whatever she is) stuff up and give the first prize ribbon to the wrong goat!! 🙂 Too funny! There were no activities in the main arena and the side show alley was conspicuously quiet so we headed into the indoor pavilion to find the baked goods and the crafty stuff.

There was actually a large photography section and I felt confident that I could have taken some sort of award in one of the categories if I had’ve entered (not too much competition in old Harrisonburg!). The baked goods looked a little limp but the kids art and craft section was very impressive. I wish I had half of the talent of some of the kids who entered art in the competitions! I also got chatting to the ladies running the Republican stall whilst D chatted to some evangelicals who tried to convince D that evolution couldn’t possibly have happened…. If you want to know more about why they believe the dinosaurs were stomping around the planet 7000 years ago with humans, and why carbon dating is horribly flawed, ask D for a run down, he’ll be happy to fill you in!!!!! 🙂 (well, maybe not!!!) Anyway, that was the Harrisonburg Country Fair..  If you’ve been to a small town country show in Au then you’ve been to the Harrisonburg Country Fair!

We continued our drive south probably an hour after we entered the show grounds… Yep, it was a whirl wind visit to Harrisonburg, if we had’ve had the time we may have stayed at the show for another two more minutes or so! 🙂 Anyway, we continued south thru the green-ness of the Shenandoah Valley and made it to the large country town of Staunton (pronounced Stanton) Va. Staunton is a really old town (est mid 1700s) and its claim to fame is that it was the home to Woodrow Wilson. (For any reading this who don’t know who Woodrow Wilson is; he was a president of the USA and was the president during WWI. He was the proponent of the ‘isolationist policy’ which is why the USA didn’t enter the first world war til quite late. He did not want the USA to join the ally coalition against the Kaiser because of his first hand experiences during the USA Civil War. He saw war as a large waste of human life and unproductive (fairly accurate I’d say). Eventually, he agreed to join the allied offensive against the Germans and the rest is history—including himself!)

We didn’t go to Staunton to see the mighty Woodrow Wilson’s home, we went to Staunton looking for somewhere to have lunch! It just happened that it was a pretty amazing little town and so instead of just going straight to the park we drove around a bit. The entry to the town might give my readers a feeling of the town. We drove along past acre and acre of beef farms and then came to some higher than surrounding, rolling hills with a sign for a turn off of Staunton. We turned in towards the town and were immediately greeted by a huge Greek revival, red bricked mansion style thing that was boarded up. My curiosity was immediately piqued, here is this huge building (think hospital or university sized) made of the gorgeous USA red bricks, white roof, huge portico held up by Corinthian columns. Gorgeous, yet neglected.. weeds growing where beautiful flower gardens once stood, every window boarded up and chain wire around the building with big “Keep out, property of Virginia State”. Immediately we started debating what this beautiful building was once used for.. I’m thinking old school or maybe hospital.. M guessed correctly, an old asylum. In fact, the head doctor of this asylum used be one of the pioneers in the use of forced sterilisation to remove “madness from the human race”. It was the writings of this doctor that were used by some of the Nazi doctors to “remove the Jewish gene from the human race”… Chilling! It is for this reason that this gorgeous old building is no longer in use and is in fact abandoned. No-one wants to remove the building (because it is so gorgeous) yet no-one wants to use the building because of the stigma of what it was used for…..

The town itself is just postcard beautiful. Old southern homes, set amongst tree lined streets. Just gorgeous.. (if you haven’t worked out I love the atmosphere of the Southern States… most little towns are littered with gorgeous old homes that are normally sheltered by gorgeous old oak trees.. beautiful). We headed up to the top of one of the hills to find the Gypsy Park. Gypsy is a beautiful old park complete with swan pond (complete with real white swans swimming around) and a band stand (you know the half shell type rotunda thingys). We enjoyed our sandwiches and cold drink and the atmosphere of the park before we finally said goodbye to the beautiful town and decided to head back East to find the Blue Ridge Parkway.

On joining the Parkway, we were immediately greeted by a welcome centre and ranger station. We almost missed the ranger station but just as we were leaving D noticed a rustic “hillbilly” cabin off to the side of the road. We swung back around and went down to get a taste of the hillbilly lifestyle. When I think Virginia (and particularly the Blue Ridge Mountains), I think hillbillies sitting on the porch of a timber house (unpainted), rocking in their rocking chairs, overalls held up by suspender type thingys, old hat on the head, smoking a pipe. This quintessential Blue Ridge picture was played out at this ranger station! The ranger was rocking himself on his porch of his old log house, corn garden out front (with scarecrow), chooks cackling in the background, no pipe, no beard and no grey hair! No kidding! We chatted to the ranger for a good twenty minutes all about the people who used to live here in the Blue Ridge. Apparently, they were mainly poor white folks, who were trying to eke out an existence. Existence is the word because their farmsteads were all high up in the mountains on very poor soil (mainly rock). No easy transport too and from market, so they were largely living on their farmsteads with all produce being consumed by the farmers. The land on the Blue Ridge used to be considered the “crap” land (the Shenandoah Valley considered the fantastic land—still is by the way) and so it was sold at a very cheap rate to whoever had the guts to try and farm it. Walking into the house (which isn’t a replica it was moved when the Blue Ridge Parkway was built), I was immediately struck by how cold it would have been in winter. Big cracks in the floorboards, chinked walls with mud and thin boards… CHILLY! A very tough life for the aforesaid, “hillbillies”…

Hundreds of these Hillbillies were all forcibly removed from their lands to build the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Shenandoah NP. It’s pretty sad, but the people who used to live in these areas were classified as uneducated, country bumpkins and so it was deemed that it would be in their best interests to sell their lands and become “gentrified”!  Some gladly sold up and moved away, many others were forced off their lands to make way for progress..

Our drive finished today with us driving back off the Blue Ridge Parkway (the road basically follows the ridgeline of the Blue Ridge Mountains, most accommodation etc is all down in the Shenandoah Valley so we will spend the next few days driving up into the mountains and then back down to the valley) and down into the town of Lexington. We used another of our vouchers for tonight’s accommodation (60 dollars plus tax tonight!) before we hit Ruby Tuesday’s to test out their menu. Ruby Tuesday’s is an all-American diner that tries to be a cut above and fails! No more needs to be said, Ruby Tuesday’s, one meal I’m happy to forget!

Song of the Day– John Denver, Country Road