Keeping it real, keeping it cool, while remaining fairly wet in Watauga County | Eastern North Carolina Now

    It's probably just me, but every time that I travel to the northwest mountains of North Carolina it rains ... often with impunity. This was the unremarkable case on this last remarkable visit to the Boone area.

    Remarkably, my home county of Beaufort, Downeast, gets 56 inches of precipitation, while Watauga only gets 51.53 inches of precipitation per annum. Those statistics are lost on me, for whenever I am in this sector of the Blue Ridge, there has indeed been an abundance of atmospheric moisture.

    And when I mention cool, I am speaking in the vernacular of climate - the cool summer weather in and around Boone, North Carolina, the home of Appalachian State University, the county seat of Watauga County. With this summer of unrelenting discomfort nearly one third spent, I sought the refreshment from North Carolina's third tallest mountain ridges - the Northern Blue Ridge Mountains.

    My home of Eastern North Carolina, this summer of 2011, has had the atmospheric ambiance of a wood fired oven. Whether it is the oppressive 100 degree heat for days on end, or the intermittent thick, white / grey smoke from the inexorable Pains Bay Fire in Dare County (depending on the prevailing winds), I have needed relief, which I find in the cool bosom of these blue hazed hills.

    The second largest municipality in Watauga County is the resort town of Blowing Rock. This quaint village was named for the rock that is the subject of a Chickasaw legend, where the story of two young lovers, which was most complicated, found a miraculous end. This story in pictures begins in that bustling village, and concludes the next day at Moses Cone Memorial Park. Both days: dark, grey, with a rare break in the interminable clouds that brought the rain passing overhead, or through these mountains of southeastern Watauga County. My small troupe: my wife and youngest daughter, played cat and mouse with the inclement weather, challenging the rain, "to show yourself or be gone." Without fail, over these two days, we knew both.

The visiting horde make their way in the heart of this lovely village. Both of these photos were made from the municipal park in the center of the village's business district: Above and below.     photos by Stan Deatherage

The street scenes of the quaint shops and the interested, and occasionally interesting, people perusing the wares of the village folk: Above and below.     photos by Stan Deatherage


The heavy drops of a nearly day long rain linger of this rhododendron, on this dark, damp day: Above. The attentive gardener is an integral component of any well functioning community. How proper that we celebrate that through this bronze sculpture: Below.     photos by Stan Deatherage


There is a second municipal park in Blowing Rock, this park between the village's business district and Chetola Resort: Above. Even from these cloud strewn heights at the Moses Cone Memorial Park, one can catch a faint glimpse of Blowing Rock and the Chetola Resort just east of the Bass Pond: Below.     photos by Stan Deatherage


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