Rockbridge County, Virginia

Part 1: Journey to Rockbridge County

Our latest adventure took us to Rockbridge County, Virginia, in Southwest Virginia. I picked up Donna from work at one o’clock Friday afternoon and off we went, Maryland Route 32 west to U.S. Interstate 70 west to Hagerstown, then U.S. Interstate 81 south to our destination 10 miles south of Lexington, Virginia.

 

The four-hour trip wasn’t the easiest, with early-exiting Friday afternoon commuters jamming I-70 and loads of weekend travelers and tractor-trailers, many unable to climb the grades at speed, congesting the two southbound lanes of I-81.

So what? The fall foliage, even though we missed the peak colors by a week or two, was spectacular, with the oranges, yellows and red dappling the landscape like an Impressionist painting.

 

For me, even more magical are the mountains (westerners will scoff at this characterization of our relatively puny ranges, but they are majestic enough for me). On I-70 as you approach Frederick, you see the Catoctin Mountains due west. Once you head south onto I-81, the mountains are out of view, replaced with rolling hills dotted with Black Angus cows and an occasional collection of goats, until you reach Winchester. At that point, you see the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west.

I have always been smitten by mountains. How could I not be? The Mountain Man strain of life-stuff courses through my veins. Just look at my heritage – there, in the photo of my ancestors on – no, I am not making this up – Turkeybone Mountain, in the bosom of West By God Virginia – is Great-grandfather John Egleson, holding my grandfather Earl Frank Egleson.

I annoyed the hell out of Donna on the drive. “Can you get a shot of that?” “Look! Can you try to get a picture over there?” “Wow – Let’s….” When I would get the death gaze I would stop for a while, or (I know, I know) take matters into my own hands and try to squeeze off a couple frames from my phone while pushing the trusty Escape onward.

Part 2: Herring Hall

 

After exiting I-81 at Rte. 11, you take Herring Hall Road, a gravelly, winding road nestled between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains. On the right are a cinder-block auto repair shop, a shop with a hand-lettered plywood sign, and a nearly empty motel (but with magnificent mountain views). On the left are rolling fields of grazing cattle who also could enjoy a great view if only they would take a minute to lift up their damned heads from the grass and look around.

Then you round a bend, and there is Herring Hall, our bed-and-breakfast for the weekend. We arrived at around 4:30 and pulled around to the back door. As we started to unload we were warmly greeted by the proprietor, Anne Herring, whose family has owned the 200-year-old house for nearly a century. Originally named Clover Hill, the house was built in 1812 and is one of the locally famous “Seven Hills” homes built by the Grigsby family. The structure’s bricks are faded after 20 decades of wear, yet the house is still imposing.

 

Inside, the house is like a museum, only more comfortable, and in amazing shape. I can’t imagine the work that goes into maintaining a house like that –keeping it structurally sound, incorporating modern niceties (electricity, indoor plumbing, heating and air conditioning, satellite TV in the parlor), and the endless  upkeep, from painting to polishing the ubiquitous silver to cleaning up after the guests. 

And cooking. Anne provides a full southern breakfast every morning. Saturday we enjoyed delicious dishes foreign to us northerners, at least for breakfast: Spoon bread with sausage, squash and cheese casserole, cucumber slices in a scallion-and-celery vinegar brine. Add to that homemade rolls and bowls of local apple butter and berry-and-lavender jam, cherry tomatoes and fresh fruit and juices, and dear Lord, the fork was a blur.

Honestly, I don’t know that we’ve ever stayed in such a wonderful place. Fancier, yes. More expensive, definitely. But for a charming, gracious, relaxing, and warm experience, get your butt to Herring Hall. Even if we didn’t have anything special to do, the trip and the stay at Herring Hall in themselves would have made for a well-spent weekend.

Part 3: Being Tourists

But we did have something special to do. Visiting the Natural Bridge in Rockbridge County had been on our bucket list for some time, and this was the time.

 

So after breakfast Saturday we waddled to the car and shoved off for Natural Bridge, about four miles from Herring Hall. The air was crisp and a brisk 41 degrees. Upon arrival we entered the cavernous gift shop, bought our tickets and, going outside to the park, descen
nded 137 steps along picturesque Cedar Creek to a path that led us almost immediately to a view of the bridge. The photos we took and my descriptions can’t begin to do it justice. The Monacan Indians, who lived around it for centuries, considered it sacred (in their mythology the bridge magically appeared just as an enemy was closing in on them). It is really powerful to see.

You walk under the bridge, craning your neck to look up, to take it all in. Water seeps from the arch above and drips down into Cedar Creek and onto the path. There are warning signs about rocks falling from the arch and a bin of hard hats in case you feel unlucky. You think about Geo. Washington and Thos. Jefferson and nearly all the founding fathers who visited, right here where you are (and survived without the headgear), and it’s pretty cool.

Then, after taking a hundred or so pictures that don’t do justice to the subject (see above), you continue on the path along the beautiful Cedar Creek, with high vertical bluffs on either side, sort of imagining Lewis and Clark trekking along this boiling body of water (although their explorations were hundreds of miles west and north of here, in really un-tread territory), toward the Monacan Indian village re-enactment. It’s a product for school field trips, complete with woven wigwams and tree-bark-shingled long-houses with smoking fires inside to keep inhabitants warm and stored food preserved and mosquitos away, and displays of tools and tomahawks and skins conditioned with the brains of the animals that donated those skins and a little amphitheater for lectures outside the mud-and-stick fence that keeps unwanted animals away.

A real Monacan woman is there, a survivor showing us how she made the fires, and telling us how the Monacans were decimated – really, annihilated – by the Iroquois, whose chief had been educated by the English and who had executed a pact with the British to fight for them and give them deer skins in return for rifles, which they used against the Monacans, who had no such pact because they didn’t believe the Colonists could prevail against the mighty British. Not only that, but the Iroquois encroached on the Monacans’ land to hunt their deer to pay for the rifles they then used to kill the Monacans. It’s a tough, tough world, kids.

From the Monacan village we continued on to the end of the path, to Lace Falls, a pretty 30-foot waterfall about a mile from the path’s beginning, and retraced our steps back to the beginning.

We mounted the 137 steps back to the gift shop, got to our car, made a slight detour to drive over the Natural Bridge on Route 11, then doubled back and headed to Lexington for lunch.

Lexington is a handsome and historic town, home to Washington & Lee University and Virginia Military Institute, two bulwarks of Southern tradition.

When you get past the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, the rest of Virginia is as southern as southern can be. The heroes most revered in the state are not so much the Virginia-born founding fathers – Washington, Jefferson, Madison – but the stars of the Civil War, with none more glorified than Gen. Robert E. Lee, leader of the Confederate Army. It is Lee, not Washington, who is buried along with his family in the chapel Lee built on the campus. It is Lee who served as college president for five years after the war. And it is Lee who embodied the philosophy of states’ rights, of swearing allegiance to Virginia before and above fealty to the federal government.

Today that southern culture lives on. Southern pride is about honor and legacy. One’s daddy and granddaddy attended VMI, and so, by God, the tradition will continue, so you know from where you came and how you will proceed.

Enough about pop-cultural political “observations”. It’s time for dinner.

We returned to Herring Hall to rest up, get dressed and head back to Lexington to dinner at the Southern Inn, Lexington’s finest restaurant. We are talking seriously good southern food done well. It’s not a fancy place, and the menu doesn’t need someone explaining it to you. Meat loaf. Steak. Fried chicken.

 

Service isn’t at break-neck speed. Let’s say it’s deliberate. As in, once you get seated, don’t expect to place your drink order until you’ve made up stories about every other guest in the place and exchanged notes with your dining partner and decided who’s right about each diner.

No worries. Once engaged, the server is, like everyone else we have met on this trip, charming, polite, sweet. Dinner is an A+, even with a forgotten side (horseradish and white cheddar potatoes au gratin!), because, everybody is just so friendly, and the food is just so good.

Like after breakfast, when we finish dessert (obviously pecan pie for me and a pumpkin tarte for Donna), we waddle out to our car and head home, stuffed with southern comfort.

We are lucky to be able to travel so easily to so many places that are vastly different from our community. With the holidays approaching (already!), we are probably done exploring for the year. But we ended this year with a really fantastic visit that let us celebrate the cultural diversity that makes this country what it is.

Eight Fun Facts about the Natural Bridge:

1.   George Washington surveyed the site in 1750 for England’s Lord Halifax (probably).

2.   The same Mr. Washington shimmied up 23 feet and carved his initials in the rock – they are framed in white paint. (Okay, this is qualified by the caveat, “legend has it.” But when it comes to George Washington, that’s good enough for me.)

3.   Thomas Jefferson purchased the bridge and surrounding land from England for 20 shillings (described in something I read as the equivalent of $2.40). During his presidency he built a couple cabins on the land and visited frequently.

 

4.   It is against the rules to fly a drone in the park.

5.   The Natural Bridge was formed hundreds of millions of years ago when a cavern collapsed and left the structure that stands today.

6.   Route 11 runs right over it. When we left the park we drove over it so we could say we have. Then we turned around. There was a gravel road off Route 11 that looked like it ran down toward the park. I thought of taking it to see where it would lead but at the last second decided against it. As we drove further, we could see that the road would have taken us directly to what looked like a scene from one of those apocalyptic zombie shows, or a place where we both would have been “Deliveranced,” if you get my gist.

7.   The Natural Bridge is promoted as “One of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.” Upon further review, what they really mean is that the Bridge has been included in several “Seven Natural Wonders of the World” lists, mostly in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But it’s still pretty awesome.

8.   Herman Melville referenced the Natural Bridge in Moby Dick: "But soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an instant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia's Natural Bridge..."