Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2014 - 40

Left: Dogwoods bloom in
spring just below one of
the overlooks on Mill
Mountain, which offers a
panoramic view of the
city and the mountains
beyond. (See pages
48-49 for identification of
the mountains.)
Right: The trails of the
area, including those on
Mill Mountain where
Johanna strikes a pose,
are a major attraction for
outdoor lovers.

The greenway winds
under a Train TresTle
and pasT Tall glass
and brick buildings,
buT round anoTher
corner and The view is
green leaves, waTer
and mounTains.
me away from Roanoke full-time for a year. I love
exploring my new, bigger city along the Mississippi
River, with its kind people, its deep history, its different variation on a southern lilt. This summer, I'm
spending two weeks there, three weeks here, alternating. On one of my return trips, when the U.S.
Airways flight curves back into the valley, crossing
green-covered mountains and the winding Roanoke
River reflecting the evening light, I find myself wiping my eyes and hoping the man napping in the next
seat doesn't notice.
So thiS city, a stranger to me in 1998, has become
home. I still live in walking distance of Grandin
Village, though it's a 20-minute walk rather than a
five-minute one. The pub, the hardware store and
the Italian restaurant have closed, and there's now
a yoga studio, a ballet studio, a dress shop and a
b u n c h o f o t h e r re s t a u r a n t s r a n g i n g f r o m
Mediterranean to locavore.
The proprietor of CUPS, the coffee shop, keeps
individual mugs for patrons (mine's there). The wait-

40 | BlueRidgeCountry.com

resses in Morrow's Community Inn (owned by the
same family since 1977) know how my husband and
I like our burgers (single, with pickles, mustard, lettuce and fries for me; double, with mayonnaise,
tomato and fries for him). I've seen a lot of movies in
that theater, which over the years closed, seemingly
permanently, and then re-opened, community-supported - everything from a midnight showing of "The
Shining" to screenings of low-budget indie films to
the recent "Hunger Games" blockbusters. Pop's
(which, as does CUPS, has a tall bookshelf filled with
board games) serves Homestead Creamery ice cream
from neighboring Franklin County. The husband of
the couple that co-owns Pop's plays bagpipes, and one
summer night a few years ago I enjoyed an impromptu
outdoor performance, following the sound of the
music down the street and around the corner, where
neighbors stood and listened while he and a few other
musicians brought some of the Scottish highlands to
the Virginia highlands.
Roanokers complain about the valley in the spring
- we're a city in a bowl in the middle of mountains,
and the pollen settles in and make us sneeze for weeks
on end - but at the same time, I'm not sure we'd want
the valley to be any other way. For instance, there is
nowhere in the city you can go and not see mountains
in another moment. There are times when I top a hill
on the way to work or the grocery store and catch a
view of the slopes just beyond the city, with the evening light hitting them or the shadows of the clouds
resting on them or a dusting of early winter snow
deepening the texture of the trees, and am brought up
short by the beauty of where this city sits. A short drive
and I can be out of town and climbing - U.S. 221 to
Floyd and its mountain music, or Va. 311 toward
McAfee Knob and four mountain ridges and West
Virginia, or U.S. 220 to Roaring Run, or the Walnut
Avenue bridge up to our stretch of the 469-mile Blue
Ridge Parkway.
And being in the city isn't that different from being
outside the city. Roanoke's neighborhoods are tree-

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Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2014

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