The rain let up slowly as I made my way east- eventually melting away to sunshine as I got to North Carolina ("Naturally", I think Mom would say). Wisps of clouds hung below the mountaintops and the low angle of the sun cast sharp shadows on the opposing mountain faces. It's been twenty-five years since I was last here. Back then, I was moving stuff with Mom from my aunt's house to bring home to Mom's. My Aunt Ellie was moving to a retirement community and that's where I was headed now.
Driving through the mountains was beautiful and felt like it hadn't been that long since I was here last. The mountains remind me a little of home. The difference is they're much taller here. When you look at the hills at home, you see sky in the distance. Here, you see a couple of more rows of taller and taller mountains.
I remembered the winding, steep inclines of the highway and the domed tunnels that snake under the mountains. What caught me off guard is how much more pronounced my fear of heights has gotten over the years. Looking at the mountains in the distance is one thing. Looking over the edge of the road and not seeing anything is something else. Every time I came to a bridge or drove next to a ravine, I broke out in a sweat, clutched the steering wheel and tried to concentrate only on the road ahead and not be sucked into the scenery beside and below me.
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| Me trying to snap a photo and not careen off the mountainside. |
I had forgotten about my ears popping with the change in altitude. I hadn't forgotten about the smell. There's a certain smell along the thickly wooded portions of the countryside, and I remember it clearly from my youth. What is it from? I had always thought it was due to the the mills in the area. But I'm assuming that the mills have left here, like they have most other places. Is it something to do with the damp forests or the kudzu that blankets the hills? Whatever the reason, it instantly takes me back to my grandmother's yard in Biltmore years and years ago.
I decided to get off an exit earlier than I had to, so I could see the area in Biltmore where my grandmother's house used to be. I knew the area had changed, but I still wanted to take a look- mostly for the relationships the home had to other landmarks in the area.
The Biltmore Dairy was as close to Nona's house as I remember it to be, though it is no longer the Biltmore Dairy. Rather, it is just one more of the homogenous restaurants that you can find anywhere else in the country. A little further down on the right was the church Mom and Dad got married in. And then back to the left a little further still, is the gate to the Biltmore House & Gardens. Nona's house used to be over on the left, closer to the church than the gate. The woods behind the stores that are squeezed into where the house used to be, still look familiar, and a part of me wishes I could explore them to maybe find a brick from the old barbecue pit or some gravel from the driveway. But it's better that I don't. It's better to think that they're in there somewhere, sitting unnoticed as a silent monument to what the area once was.
I drove across the bridge that goes over the train yard. These were the tracks we rode into town on many, many years ago. This was the bridge we had to stop on on one of our many excursions during that same era. A storm had moved in and the hail that came with it was so blinding, my grandmother had to pull over and we waited it out. I couldn't imagine doing something like that now, since it is now a major throughway.
I took a last look before turning around and getting back on the highway to go to Ellie's.
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