Losing the "Lost Parkway Blues"

The parkway was closed and I was bummed. . . .

An extra incentive to periodically visit my daughter, an art student at Radford University in southern Virginia, is the Blue Ridge Parkway. I look forward to cruising 50 or 100 miles of it on the trip home -- stopping to hike a bit, weather permitting. A light snow covered the ground when we awoke yesterday morning. The parkway would be barricaded.

I loathe interstate traffic, but there was no alternate route southward out of Christiansburg. Cold rain had replaced snow and sleet, though, by the time I reached Statesville, NC, on I-77. Off I went into the heart of the state. A fine rainy day (I love dreary days) and new roads to discover! I can’t reconstruct the zig-zaggy route I fingered out on the map as I drove along, but it was perfect. Lunchtime found me at a roadside eatery called Norman’s Café -- again, perfect. (Check it out on Highway 10, North Carolina.) We’re talking beef liver smothered in onions (the good kind) underneath a bed of French fries (the very good kind). I loaded it down with catsup so I could really gross out our youngest sophisticant daughter when I described it to her later.

Country cooking, country roads, new towns to see and a grey day ideal for pondering. By the time I arrived home, I’d forgotten my "Lost Parkway Blues."