Spring LEAF Festival May 9-11

Biannual Black Mountain Tradition

It’s not too late to get your tickets for the 2008 spring Lake Eden Arts Festival, at beautiful Lake Eden in Black Mountain. Word has it that vehicle camping permits are all sold out, but there are still tent permits available as well as weekend and day tickets for those who don’t mind staying at one of the many great hotels and motels in the Black Mountain and Asheville environs.

LEAF holds its festivals every spring and fall (this year the autumn festival will be October 17-19) to showcase the LEAF in Schools and Streets arts mentoring projects for youth, its LEAF International music collaborations from Panama, Guatemala, Rwanda, Bequia and Mexico, and dozens of great, culturally significant musical groups, individuals and artists from everywhere.

This year there will be more than 40 Healing Arts Workshops during the day, featuring Yoga and Tai Chi, Folk Art, Juried Handicrafts, a national $1,000 Poetry SLAM, a children’s village with clowns, jugglers, puppeteers, games, stories and art projects. There are joyful parades, jam sessions, circus arts and zipline fun out over the lake.
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When Your Frisbee Dog Gets Old…

Disc Golf Takes Off in NC!

We once got to take care of a wonderful old Border Collie after his kids went off to college and he got arthritis. He’d been “The World’s Best Frisbee Dog” in his day, and still made a valiant effort to chase down the stray discs our grandchildren would toss in the yard. Unfortunately, our property is seriously up-and-down, and poor old Angus had almost as much trouble with his eyesight as he had with his joints, once rolling halfway down the hill before we could rescue him.

So we quickly learned not to let him outside when playing the first 9 holes of our newly-installed disc golf course, complete with metal poles, bicycle wheels and swing chains as ‘holes’. Now we’ve 20 holes along with plans for another nine on the flatland at the top of the driveway. Hold an informal tourney every January called the “Kudzu Open,” and have a big basket full of pro discs - Archangels and Orcs, putters and drivers, most bright enough in color to be readily found even if they go off the side of the fairway and end up 200 feet down the mountain in a pile of leaves.

The garden sits squarely in the fairway of the 2nd and 4th holes, lose a stroke if you land on anything growing (compost pile doesn’t count). Still have 4 broken windows in the library from when my nephew’s shot went wild and managed to break every single one of the panes one right after the other (he got extra credit). Still, it’s fine exercise, it’s fresh air, and it’s something to do with a disc if your frisbee dog can’t jump anymore.

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Good Even, M’Lords and Ladies!

It began innocently enough. The French ambassador Vicompte Bertrand Fenelon de Saint Julen had arrived at the Lord Mayor’s manor just ahead of the Spanish ambassador, Count Bernadino de Mendoza. A day ahead of Good Queen Bess’ scheduled arrival. The two had been shown their lavish quarters, and having unloaded personal possessions, strode together along the South Wing’s stained glass lined hall seeking the privy. They were not friends, exactly, but they both took their positions with utmost seriousness. Thus what they overheard in the privy - a conversation abruptly cut short when their presence was noted - set them upon a quest to discover the plot and earn the favor of the Queen…

The 14th Annual North Carolina Renaissance Faire begins this year with a tale of intrigue among the nobles on the very eve of the Queen’s spring visit. The Faire runs for three weekends - March 29th and 30th, April 5th and 6th, and April 12th and 13th at the North Carolina Fair Grounds in Raleigh. The weekend of April 5-6 will host Tartan Day celebrations, so wear your clan’s tartan and join in the highland games!

Enjoying the Duke University Medieval and Renaissance Studies Department’s involvement and support, the North Carolina Faire is one of the premier Ren-Faires in the nation, as well as one of the earliest. So dig out those Elizabethan costumes, that treasured sword as well as all the crown jewels, and make plans to attend the North Carolina Renaissance Faire this year!

14th Annual North Carolina Renaissance Faire

Top 25 Reasons to Visit NC - 4

Part 4: Reasons 16 - 25

16. Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Cultural Feast

The cultural and educational offerings in the State Capital area will appeal to even the most sophisticated of visitors. Excellent history and natural science museums, the North Carolina Symphony, the North Carolina Museum of Art, Duke Gardens at Duke University and more great outings can keep interested visitors busy for weeks!


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Top 25 Reasons to Visit NC - 3

Part 3: Reasons 11 - 15

Moving toward the east, there are more great reasons to consider North Carolina’s abundant offerings for family fun when planning getaways and vacations.

11. Mountains to Sea Trail

From the very top of Clingman’s Dome near the Tennessee border to the sand dunes at Jockey’s Ridge State Park on the strand of the Outer Banks, North Carolina’s 925-mile long Mountains-to-Sea Trail offers an adventurous way to explore the state’s natural treasures and human wonders. This is an adventure a visitor can embrace in small chunks or in an extended all at once while experiencing the best of NC’s towns and cities, rural agritourism initiatives and natural preserves.

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Top 25 Reasons to Visit NC - 2

Part 2: Reasons 6 - 10

6. Ski Resorts and Summer Fun

North Carolina’s western mountains are home to a number of world-class ski resorts, most of whom offer summer fun as well. The chalets and cabins are as comfortable in summer as in winter, with easy access to Western North Carolina’s favorite recreational areas.


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Top 25 Reasons to Visit NC

There are literally hundreds of great places to go and things to do in beautiful North Carolina, but for this series I’m just going to highlight 25 of the best reasons to visit. Starting in the lush mountains of the west and meandering through the state toward the storied Outer Banks, this quick tour of our state offers something for everyone!

Part 1: Reasons 1 - 5

1. Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The most visited of America’s National Parks, the Great Smoky Mountains hosts more than 9 million people a year on its Blue Ridge Parkway and in its forests, creeks, coves and hollows along 900 miles of trails. Straddling the Tennessee-North Carolina boarder, the park is home to one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is now an International Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage site.


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A Guided Tour of New Bern

The first Colonial capital of North Carolina, historic New Bern maintains a regular time capsule of building styles in well-maintained houses and buildings. This is a narrated video tour of the coastal port city where the Trent and Neuse Rivers meet and flow into the southern arm of Pamlico Sound.

While in the coastal region, you may want to investigate some of the coastal legends that have accumulated over the centuries, from the storied Lost Colony through ghosts, pirates and even ghost ships, to a Dismal Swamp said to be home to a tragic Lady of the Lake.

To begin planning your trip to the beautiful and storied North Carolina coast, check out some of the offered information and links at CoastalGuide: New Bern.

NC Ghost Light Caught On Film

Yet another entry in the storehouse of North Carolina’s famous ghosts, goblins and odd phenomena offerings, the Pactolus Ghost on video! Caution to the faint-hearted (and those who avoid such things on general principles please turn the sound OFF), this video contains strong language and some really scary stuff…

Coverage of some of our other famous ghosts can be found in the following posts:

Hauntings: The Brown Mountain Lights

Hauntings: Crystal Coast’s Most Famous Ghost

Enjoy!

The Well-Planned Greening of North Carolina

There was a nice article in the Asheville Citizen-Times and Mountain Express newspaper’s GreenScene this past month highlighting a planned New Urbanist development in Fletcher that will boast 1,600 solar panels on a 400-unit apartment complex called Rivercane Village. Rivercane represents the largest residential application of solar-thermal energy in the nation, something we here in WNC are quite excited about.

Developer Tom Ryan received approval for the 38-acre complex from the Fletcher Town Council in mid-January. It’s modeled after similar developments in Europe. There will be solar hot water, solar space heating (a design attribute), and even solar air conditioning using solar absorption chillers. Not that one needs much AC here in the highlands, but it’s handy for a few days every year.

Better yet, it’s not a private rich-people gated community. The project is for work force housing according to federal guidelines. 18 acres of the property will be designated a conservation easement with the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy, with walking trails that will be given to the town of Fletcher as part of its greenway system.

With encouragement coming from both federal subsidies and state initiatives applying to individual homeowners, home builders and community developers through the Smart Communities Network and the North Carolina Solar Network, plans are being developed for more and more sustainable communities in our state. When it comes time for my new roof, I’m joining the Million Solar Roofs Initiative partnership in my area.

Surf some of the great links below for more information related to green initiatives in North Carolina, and see how this can translate into even more tourism dollars in our state coffers to provide even more support for our storied independent attitudes and strong valuation of our wonderful natural resources!

Links

Appalachian Energy & Green Partners

The Green Scene

Green subdivision in Fletcher may be wave of the future

North Carolina Solar Center Million Solar Roofs Initiative

Smart Communities Network

North Carolina Green Building Technology Database