Shenandoah Valley LJ

Just before the end the road, three orange cones divert me toward a mown field serving as the parking lot for the crowd that's come to see Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder. It's been more than twenty years since I last saw Ricky, and ever since, I've declared his show in the '80's to be the most entertaining concert I'd ever seen. I should be excited, but my enthusiasm has been quashed. Perhaps the end of a trying work-week has not yet been expunged from my core. It's Friday, and instead of being in tune with an evening of great music, I'm uncomfortable, being too much of a task master, and feeling out of sync with the evening. But time is a great healer. Thirty minutes after parking, I'm sinking into a folding chair with a can of suds in hand and finally starting to become one with the cool atmosphere around me.

Since the early 1800s, people have been coming to Orkney Springs to relax and partake in the town's curative waters. In the 1960's, this remote pastoral setting became the backdrop for the Shenandoah Valley Music Festival which, to this day, continues to bring high quality acts like Ricky Skaggs to its humble and intimate stage. It's a unique venue tucked in a serene mountain valley, and Orkney's healing powers have begun working on me.

Complete contentment is a rare feeling. It seems often to be hovering nearby, yet rarely captured. But I caught it tonight during the second chorus of Cajun Moon. All was right. The music was flawless. The heat of this mid-summer day had abated. The company I was with were all smiling. The mountains surrounding us framed the venue in a beautiful and peaceful way. I could not think of anything else that would have improved the moment. What more completely defines contentment than that?

For the rest of the weekend I kept thinking about that moment. And the night full of great music from such a historic venue in the peaceful and healing Orkney Springs valley.

Anyone know a good source for from-the-orchard apple juice? I'm using it for brewing so it can't have preservatives.

Bonus points if it's close to Waynesboro.

Hey everyone!

I've accepted a position as a reporter at a newspaper in the Waynesboro/Staunton area, and was hoping to get some story ideas.

This could be anything: news ideas, investigative ideas, features, profiles on someone you think is cool.

I start in a couple of weeks and figured it'd be good to go to the people who know the place best. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much!

My wife and I are collapsed on our couch late Saturday night. We're worn out, and our dead weight is sinking deeper and deeper into the comforting cushions. My daughter sitting at our computer desk spins in her chair to face us as she recalls one more in a long list of memories from spending the last three days as a princess in the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival. This time she's telling us how her bus was escorted through traffic congestion by the police like Moses parting the Red Sea.

She's had a fantastic time being treated like royalty since Thursday morning. But now the spotlights have been turned off, the marine escorts are back at Quantico, the cameras are no longer flashing, and she's left with the rest of the weekend to acclimatize to common folk life again before heading back to college for finals week.

I'm in need of acclimatizing as well. I've figuratively been riding her coat-tails, following her around our town from event to event. It's stirred up my life for a time, affording the opportunity to become fully immersed in this annual festival. As I begin to digest it all from the comfort of my couch, I conclude that this stirring has been a very good thing.

I did things I hadn’t done in a while – wore pink, danced with my wife, and drank beer from a keg.

I did things in volume – shaking dozens of hands and giving more hugs in three days than I will for the rest of the year. (To hell with swine flu precautions.)

I did things more deeply - conversations went beyond the normal minutia of the weather and how the kids were doing. In fact, several chats were down right revealing. Perhaps a few cups of keg juice contributed, but more likely Apple Blossom provided the ointment to free conversations from the normal inhibitions that prevent us from going deeper.

Admittedly, the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival is a bit over the top and corny at times, but it’s eighty two year tradition helps define our community, gives us a sense of pride, and stirs us to do things we don't normally do. And so, a year from now when it rolls around again, I won't hesitate to wear pink.

4/15/09, 4:05 p.m. and it's pouring. I'm heading south on a highway that's becoming exceedingly familiar now that I have a daughter attending Bridgewater College. For this trip though it's business that has me driving right down the center of the wide and rolling Shenandoah Valley. Need to be in Harrisonburg by 6 for a handshaking & backslapping reception. With time to spare, there's no need for me to drive boxed in by tractor trailers during a downpour so I exit the interstate and finish the trip on the quieter Valley Pike.

4/15/09, 10:30 p.m. and the bartender has had enough of our group. Scowling, he nosily flips chairs onto table tops hoping we'll get the hint. A few minutes later he reaches his limit and turns the radio off. "It's time for y'all to leave." Grudingly, we call it a night, but it's probably a good thing. Last year at this same reception when we had a different bartender who let us stay late, a few folks overindulged.

4/16/09, 8:05 a.m. and our group from the bar has transformed into the group gathering for breakfast. The joking has become less boisterous and daring. The chat becomes safe and more professional. Time to get down to business. Literally. But it's a carefully selected group of attendees in the room making for a comfortable morning of mutual advising with business partners.

4/16/09, 4:55 p.m. with all business duties done, I'm strolling Court Square in Harrisonburg. Yesterday's showers have been replaced by beautiful and welcomed sunshine. My camera is out and I'm hunting for beauty making for an enjoyable way to kill some time before meeting my daughter for dinner. I'm taking her and her boyfriend to an italian restaurant I visited ten years ago, and hoping it's as good now as it was back then.

4/16/09, 7:40 p.m. and the sun is setting brilliantly behind the western ridges as I'm driving north through the center of the valley again. Time to go home. I'm in no hurry, the traffic is light, the radio reception is good, and I'm certain I'll never tire of trips up and down this increasingly familiar valley.

Sydney has its opera house,
Dubai has a fan,
In Paris, there's a tower.

Seattle has its needle,
St Louis an arch,
In Amarillo, a Cadillac ranch.

D.C. has its pencil,
Roanoke had a star,
And in White Post, there's a white post.

Structures that define a region. Overpriced, impractical, unnecessary, and sometimes controversial, but if nothing else, these structures are visionary. With each passing year as they become more prominently linked to an area, we fall in love with them, take pride in them, and defend them.

And such a defining structure has recently risen above the tree line, visible from the interstate, just west of Strasburg, Virginia.

It's simple, and deliberately brings together church and state: Three white crosses and two American flags - 150 feet in the air. Located at the top of the Shenandoah Valley and with an NFL MVP as its official spokesman, Freedom Memorial Park will quickly become Strasburg's most prominent image.

I'm about to move back to the Winchester area - Middletown, to be exact - *gasp* tomorrow! (Jeez, I still have a lot of packing to do...) I went to Sherando and left home at 18 to go to college, and I just never went back. Now, after 13 years, I'm coming home! I'm excited about it - not excited about living with the parents again after living on my own for so long, but it will (hopefully) only be for a month or so until I can find my own house for myself, four cats, and two dogs. I start my new, fantastic, dream job on Monday so I have a lot to look forward to.

I'm so glad to have found this forum. So hello!

Hi! I can't believe I haven't found this community before!

I just wanted to post to say hello! I have lived in Winchester for the majority of my life. I attended college in Florida, but moved home last summer and got a teaching job in Shenandoah County.

Since graduating high school, I haven't kept in touch with many people I knew at school. And, since I travel to seven different schools in Shenandoah County but live in Winchester, I don't really know people at work, either.

I would love to get to know some other people in the area! I'd love to get a group together to play board and/or video games every once in a while (if there is not already such a group!). If you're interested or just wanna say hi, please feel free!

I look forward to your comments, thanks! :) ♥
 

We are on a deer run so we see herds of deer every day. Recently, though, my husband and I have noticed an all black deeer. I have never seen this before. I can see little nubs starting to come in, so it looks like we have an all black stag coming through our area. He is going to be beautiful full grown. I want to get pictures as he grows. but this one is skittish. Thank goodness. I want to keep him that way to keep him away from the hunters. I wish I had the money to invest in a long distance lense camera with a night lense, etc. to really capture some pictures.


Anyone know anything about black stags in general? I do not know too much about them - in fact I had not heard about them. I had only heard about the white stag when I lived in England so this really surprised me.

Greetings!

If anyone has an interest in the history of Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism is holding a demo & display on the University of Virginia campus this Sunday.

Click Here for details!