Dear Husband and I are on vacation this week with my father's side of the family. As everyone is coming from across the Mid-Atlantic (and Texas!), we met at a rental house on Smith Mountain Lake, south of Roanoke, Virginia. After church, he and I drove down the western face of the Appalachian Mountain through West Virginia, alternating between proper highways and winding country roads. We drew the line at the dirt track Google Maps suggested to save a few minutes! Scattered rain storms passed through the area, leaving in their wake a succession of rainbows, including one that was ROYGBIVGBIV.
Smith Mountain Lake was created in 1963 when American Electric Power dammed the Roanoke/Staunton River to flood towns and farmland in order to create a 20,600-acre lake in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Workers burned down some properties and moved a bunch of graves in the valley that after 2 years was covered by an average of 55 feet of water. There are 500 miles of waterfront property, some mostly used for vacation rentals and some for single-family and retirement homes. Fun facts: Booker T. Washington was born a slave in this area, and the comedy What About Bob? directed by Frank Oz and starring Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss was filmed here in 1991.
As we learned from the small but quality Visitors Center in the nearby SML State Park, there is a lot of wildlife left, even after the bison, elk, and gray wolf moved out of the state. Beaver and river otter were once hunted to extinction but have been reintroduced. Meanwhile, human activity has introduced or amplified other kinds of animals, from rats and mice to opossums, who like to live wherever we leave our garbage. The Center even had a large fish tank housing some of the varieties that can be hooked in the lake--in fact, my dad had caught a large catfish over the weekend, and the family who were already there ate him for lunch! Below is a stand of fancy birdhouses for purple martins, a bird that mates for life. Native Americans used to hollow out gourds to make homes for them.
I really liked the Museum. Wish I had more time there.
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