A Most Pleasant Lane

I’d traveled 30 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway coming the long way back from a meeting in Roanoke last week and I was looking for autumn images. I headed home empty-handed and disappointed, what with the brooding sky, low haze and cold wind.

As I neared the house, the sun broke through. Less than a half mile from home, here was a scene worth stopping for–the ordinary getting its new look for fall.

I’ve always thought this was the most picturesque stretch of our two miles of single lane road between the house and the hardtop. Off to the left, a notch in the ridge lets the morning light come streaming through. The creek–such as the summer’s drought has left it–meanders along among the stones below the road. There was a time not all that long ago the creek bed WAS the road up this narrow canyon.

This setting is where I had my “driveway moment” a month ago watching the grackles congregate to bathe; you can see in the image for that post the way the morning light looks from the left just where the road crests in this picture.

I have a few more very-nearby recently-snapped views I’d like to show you this week. After all, there’s no place like home.