Recreation: The Valley Has It All
Flanked by the Appalachain Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Roanoke Valley is singularly blessed with outdoor experiences for all ages and ability levels.
Great Swimmin’ Holes
Having a picnic beside a mountain stream, cooling off in refreshing waters and soaking up rays on a sun-warmed rock is one of the best ways to spend a summer day. Especially if you’ve earned your dip-and-dry with a good walk to get to the water.
McAfee Knob in the Cold
Stand in the Valley View Mall parking lot, look to the northwest, and it will be next to impossible to not be able to pick out McAfee Knob. It’s that piece of land that looks like a wave breaking on the crest of Catawba Mountain…
Hawk Migration
There’s an annual event in the Roanoke area that, despite having some 10,000 participants, goes unnoticed by almost everyone. Yet all you have to do is turn your eyes skyward to witness it.
The Johnson Farm
One of my earliest and fondest childhood memories is sitting by the fireplace in my grandparents’ farmhouse, watching my grandmother’s skilled fingers creating what would become an heirloom patchwork quilt…
Club Selection: Ever a Better Time?
A recent issue of Golf Digest puts the national picture for private golf clubs in blunt perspective: Clubs are “slashing initiation fees, dropping monthly dues, turning a once-elaborate screening process into a mere show-me-the-money formality.”
Taking Your Child into the Wild
When Glen Cove Elementary School second-grade teacher Chip Donahue read Richard Louv’s “Last Child in the Woods,” it confirmed his feelings that the present generation of children has what the author calls “nature deficit disorder.”
Trail Blazers
It’s early Sunday morning. The thermometer reads 27 degrees. A brisk wind is blowing. A heavy fog covers the landscape. And a few snowflakes are falling.
Roanoke Walks: Hoop Hole
The snow! The rock hops! The blue sky! They make Hoop Hole a winter treat.
Roanoke Walks: Tinker Mountain
Tinker Mountain is familiar, and unmistakable, to those who drive I- 81 north from Roanoke into Botetourt County.