I think the Dodge Motor Company should produce a car called the Hodgepodge. I also think this car should be endorsed by Dean and Rog. But that’s enough o’ that.
This edition of ThrowBack Thursday (TBT) covers three separate trips (well, 2.5 really, but we’ll get to that later). We begin on a lovely spring day in Appalachia. It’s mid-May 2018, and we find ourselves at Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, along the Blue Ridge Parkway (BuRP), near the town of Blowing Rock, North Carolina. I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to make up your own jokes about this town. I will make no such jokes, out of respect for the citizens of this town, who I believe are Blowing Rockers.
Moses H. Cone was a very wealthy industrialist around the turn of the 20th century, owning multiple textile mills around North Carolina. He used some of his wealth to purchase 3,500 acres of land, a parcel the BuRP would later cut through. On this property, he built a 14,000-square-foot, 23-room mansion in 1901. He also had several miles of automobile roads built around the property, so guests (and the family themselves) could more easily reach the most enjoyable spots on the property. A good portion (maybe all?) of these roads is accessible to the public as hiking / horsie ridin’ trails. But let’s start at the mansion, since that’s where I parked.
Right, then! Time to depart the mansion environs and escape to nature. We will walk one of the old automobile roads to the Flat Top Lookout Tower. Wait, what’s this “we” garbage? It was me! I went by myself because I’m a big boy now! And I took pictures with my big boy camera. See (below)? SEE?!
The second of our 2.5 trips takes place on the 8th of September 2018. On this day, a Parkinson’s Disease Symposium was being hosted by Charlotte’s Calvary Church. I had driven past this place many times and kept thinking I needed to photograph it. Thus, when the symposium was finished, I took the time to photograph the exterior of the building; sadly, the interior of the building does not match the exterior. At least, not the parts of the interior that I saw; it’s a big place.
OK, now it’s time to get serious. Stop screwin’ around, DAMMIT! Don’t make me turn this car around! Ahem, what follows is the ‘half trip’ referenced in the second paragraph of this post. I’m calling it half a trip because one weekend, I photographed two cities, and (in a weak attempt at keeping TBT posts relatively uniform in size), today’s post only covers the first half of that weekend. Got it? Good. Let’s proceed.
During late January 2019, I made a second attempt at taking a weekend trip to Roanoke, Virginia. Regular unleaded readers may recall my previous attempt on Roanoke was a total disaster, and in fact was part of The Worst Two Weeks of My Life. Not so this time! I was able to thoroughly enjoy my two main reasons for visiting Roanoke: the Virginia Museum of Transportation and the Roanoke Pinball Museum. I also found a few great restaurants, including the best Mexican food I’ve ever had, at El Rodeo right next to my hotel! And I still had plenty of time to wander around photographing the architecture of Roanoke’s downtown. But unlike Asheville in the past and Greensboro in the future (next week’s TBT), I didn’t attempt to find a self-guided tour for downtown Roanoke. I just found a place to park my car and started wandering. It wasn’t long before I stumbled upon this amazing specimen of Art Deco: the old Norfolk & Western Railway headquarters. (Note: During the 1980s, the Norfolk & Western merged with Southern Railway, forming today’s Norfolk Southern Railway. The headquarters for this new railroad giant are located just outside its namesake: Norfolk, Virginia.)
Notice that in the last pic above, our bro the Norfolk & Western HQ has a “skywalk” connecting it to the building across the street, which is…an older Norfolk & Western HQ, built in 1896! This older HQ building is known as Eight Jefferson Place. Here ’tis:
I hear you saying you want to see the Boxley Building. How the Hell have you heard of the Boxley Building? Never mind, here it is:
Next up on our feature list: Roanoke’s Municipal Building
I didn’t manage to get a name for this building, but it’s got some cool Art Deco:
Next up: the Liberty Trust Building, built in 1909:
Lastly (building-wise), here are some pics I snapped in between the ‘featured’ buildings above:
After a morning of walking and photographing, I had a good lunch somewhere (it was an Asian food place downtown, but the details have been lost to time). Then it was time to spend the afternoon at the Roanoke Pinball Museum! Don’t let the word “Museum” steer you wrong – they have a couple dozen pinball machines (and a couple of video game machines) that you can actually play. I’ve been to multiple such museums over the past few years, and this one may be my favorite. It’s easily in my top 3. Frankly, I can’t believe I haven’t made a return visit. Maybe a Virginia trip is in order for later this year.
I didn’t take many pictures at the pinball museum, as I wanted to spend all my time actually playing the games. I did take pictures of a couple old games, though:
And that, my friends, concludes my first successful trip to Roanoke. But on the very next day, I paid my first ever visit to downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. I’ll post about that in next week’s TBT, so TTFN!
Voyages with Parkinson's 