Anticipating Spring Encounters in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Parkway
Before moving close to the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia, I had never heard about a bird called a Scarlet Tanager or a Trillium flower. I grew up in the post-industrial landscapes of Connecticut’s blue-collar cities and towns, where we knew something about degraded rivers and horseshoe crabs along the shoreline. Expansive national park-sized natural spaces in Virginia and its geography were a revelation — of size, yes, but also of connections. Although I learned over time that the Parkway is a natural area shaped by a heavy human hand, there are multitudes of wild encounters that happen only steps away from the parkway: my first sighting of a Scarlet Tanager, which I followed through the trees near Otter Creek and discovering Trillium in the early spring nestled in the topsoil at the highest elevations, where craggy trees are sometimes enveloped in fog.
None of these are guaranteed sightings for day visitors; each is a thrill. Coming across Trillium seems the most precious of them all: an early spring flower lying close to the forest floor, with colors unlike anything around it: light purple, blood red, bright white. If you wait too long, Trillium has come and gone. So, you start planning to visit in spring. When will the birds migrate through Blue Ridge? When will the Trillium be in bloom? A shift in perspective happens when embracing the fragility and resiliency of nature becomes your guiding force.
My husband used to say that he could feel a change within himself when driving up and into the Blue Ridge Mountains. He likened a visit to a mini vacation because even a half-day spent there reset his mind and lifted his spirit.
There is magic in those mountains.
