To help clear my head, I like to take a weekend trip to the mountains by myself. During these few days, I can read, write, take pictures, watch movies without being interrupted by the phone, the thing in the house or yard that needs to be fixed or cleaned, or the nagging sense that I should be doing something productive with my time. When I tell others about this, they always ask how my wife feels about that. I always tell them that my wife of twenty-eight years is a beautiful soul who understands me and knows I need to decompress. The next question from those folks is, “I wonder if my wife/husband would be so nice?”
If only they could be so lucky.
This summer, I found a spot through AirBnB that called itself “Ripshin Goat Dairy Garret.” It was located in Happy Valley, North Carolina, about twenty minutes from both Lenoir and Blowing Rock. It looked like a quiet, clean, cozy place less than two hours from Charlotte, and the price was excellent. What follows are some images, a couple videos, and a few stories of my time spent in Happy Valley.
Contents
I drove up on Thursday afternoon, but instead of going to the farm straightaway, I went directly to Boone, which is about thirty minutes beyond the valley. Liza, one of the owners of Ripshin Farm, had advised me that there wasn’t a grocery store in Happy Valley, so I needed to buy food before arriving. She spoke highly of a place called Stick Boy Bakery in Boone, so I went there and to Earth Fare to buy some easy-to-prepare meals (like, anything I could pop in the microwave) and, of course, beer.
When I pulled into the driveway (after missing it once), I was immediately struck by the beauty of the gardens, the wide expanse of pastures, and the eclectic sculptures scattered whimsically around the property. I soon met the owners, Liza and William, who were warm, friendly, and willing to answer all of my questions without getting annoyed.
It turned out that Liza had grown up in the valley, and she was actually living in the stone house once owned by her grandparents. Six generations of her family had lived in Happy Valley, and her children and their families live there, too. William's family moved to the valley when he was ten. Both of them had been in different careers until Liza happened to go to the Carl Sandburg house in Flat Rock and learned that his wife had raised goats. The notion intrigued her, and after conducting extensive research, including a couple of trips to France to see how to raise goats the old-fashioned way, she and William jumped into goat farming.
Over the course of the next few years, the Ripshin Goat Farm grew, and at one time, Liza and William had seventy goats and were producing five thousand pounds of cheese annually. After about ten years, they decided to stop being goat farmers and cheese producers. Today, only one goat remains, and she is fifteen. Aside from her, there is a pony, a large, furry, enthusiastic farm dog, and several chickens.
So, that’s a little bit of information about how I got here and the history of the place. Although I spent a good amount of my time in the small, one-room garret enjoying the quiet, I did take several walks around the property and a few beautiful drives though the mountains.
FRIDAY
I’m an early riser, so at about 6:30 on a rainy morning, I drove out to the end of the driveway, took a right, and wandered for about three hours.
When I returned, I spent quite a bit of time taking pictures of the flowers and sculptures around the farm. It's a wonderful place to just wander around.
There are also a bunch of sculptures just about anywhere you look. These are just a few of them.
On Friday evening, I took my first bath in more than thirty years. I wasn’t pampering myself – there was no alternative. The garret has only a large, white, porcelain tub and no shower. I knew this, of course, when I rented the room, but I hadn’t really thought it through.
As I looked at the tub, I thought for a moment about Googling how to take a bath, but I had too much pride. I figured that I had bathed my children for years, so how hard could it be?
It was harder than I thought.
I had not taken into account the difference in mass. My kids were comparatively tiny when I bathed them. I, on the other hand, felt a bit like an orca when slipped into the tub, or maybe a hairless gorilla would be a better description. The water level rose alarmingly as I settled into the tub, but it didn’t spill over. I laid there awkwardly for a second, and decided that this was not relaxing at all, so I’d better get on with it.
I reached for the little bottle of shampoo I had on the table next to the tub, dropped it, and then spent an embarrassing amount of time chasing it around my pale body. I finally caught it, lathered up my head, and then asked myself, “What the hell do I do now?” I decided to slip down in the tub so I could rinse the shampoo out. This was a really bad idea.
As I slipped down, I got a shot of soapy warm water up my nose that was surprisingly unpleasant. I vigorously scrubbed my hair for a moment and sat up quickly to drain my flooded sinuses and take a breath. What I hadn’t realized was, a. ) my forehead had never been truly under the water, so when I sat up, the suds ran into my eyes, and b. ) the sudden lurch of my too-large corpus had sent a tsunami over the edge of the tub and onto Liza’s wooden floor.
I was aggravated, anxious about the floors, and my eyes and sinuses were on fire. I hastily rinsed the rest of the shampoo off, gave scant attention to the cleanliness of the rest of me, and drained the tub. As the water gurgled down the drain, I toweled off and stepped out of the tub. Just before my right foot hit the bath mat, my left gave an odd YAAWWRK on the bottom of the tub as it slipped. My groin suddenly pulled taught as a bowstring, and I found myself in a precarious semi-split over the gleaming white edge of bathtub. As luck would have it, I did not suffer any further indignity and got myself out just in time to mop up the tidal pool I had created.
Fortunately, there was no damage to the floors, my groin, or my sinuses, but my ego took a serious and painful blow. Next time I needed to bathe, I promised myself that I would do some serious stretching and cram cotton balls up my nose before I even turned the spigot.
SATURDAY
In the middle of the night, there was an impressive storm that had woken me up a couple of times, but the next morning, the valley was filled with fog.
My Afternoon Trek
On Saturday afternoon, I took a drive that William recommended. He described it as a nice drive along a mountain river, and he added, “I’m pretty sure it’s all paved now.”
I looked up the route on Google Maps, and it did wind along Wilson Creek, eventually ending in Linville. That was a bit too far for my timeframe, so I chose a stopping place about halfway, a charming locale called Coffey’s General Store. According to Google, it had been there for 130 years, so it sounded appealing. Off I went.
The drive to Adako was beautiful and fun. There were lots of twists and turns to keep things interesting, and there were several wide pastures filled with bright yellow light and a surprising number of Christmas trees.
Taking a hard right onto Brown Mountain Beach Road, I noticed the sign that informed me that I was entering Pisgah National Forest. It was also at about this time that I noticed another sign — Pavement Ends.
“Well, that’s alright,” I said to myself, “William did say that most of it is paved.”
After about ten minutes of rumbling along a packed gravel road that was optimistically considered two lanes but was really about one and three-quarters, I realized something — William was wrong.
Really wrong.
The next twelve miles of my journey were comprised of bouncing along this narrow road at about fifteen-to-twenty miles per hour. Because of Flash’s sport suspension (that’s the name of my red Mini Cooper), bounce might not be the best descriptor. Crashed, slammed, juddered, or jolted, might be better. And, because of the white dust kicked up by the impossibly large van in front of me, I couldn’t always see the ruts and holes before hitting them with a tooth-cracking whack. And, if you are wondering, “Why the hell didn’t you turn around, moron?,” let me tell you that I still believed the kind fellow who recommended this drive to me – I thought smooth pavement was just around the next sharp, blind, bend. I also should inform you that there are two other factors that make retreat impossible: the road doesn’t follow the creek – most of the time it hugs it. Often the edge of the road borders an incredibly steep bank down to the creek. And, when there is a slice of flat land between the road and the water, it is filled with the vehicles of the hundreds of people who come to play in it. The cars, pickups, and Jeeps were wedged in so tightly together that I have no idea how anyone got in or out.
So, as Flash and I moved up the mountain towards the General Store, I could hear in my head my red Mini’s clipped British voice letting me know what he thought of all of this:
“Well, now, a brief jaunt down a country road? What fun!”
“Alright, I’ve rather had enough of this. Where’s the actual road?”
“Twelve more miles of this? Are you shitting me?”
“Ouch!”
“I say!”
“I say, do you see that Jeep over there with the bloody big tires? That’s not me, you twit. I have low-profile sport tires, you halfwit.”
“If I had hands, I’d choke you right now.”
“Did you hear that loud noise? That was a rock. A ROCK. How big a dent do you imagine that’s put in me?”
“Remember, this wasn’t my idea.”
“I hate you. I really do hate you.”
The store was kind of interesting because there are displays full of what it contained and sold over the years. Towards the back of the small, dim building, there is still a section that had once been the post office for this stop on what was once a small-gauge railroad. But none of that musty stuff was the kind of interesting that justified an hour-long jounce along a dusty road. At least not for me, and certainly not for poor Flash, who was covered in fine white dust.
After a quick look around the store, I asked an older fellow sitting on the porch how I might return to Blowing Rock or Lenoir by way of a paved road. “Which one?” he asked. “Those are two different places.”
To control my urge to throttle him for stating the obvious, I patted his old black dog, Daisy. “I know,” I said. “I’m really just interested in finding a paved road.”
“Where are you tryin’ to get to?”
Happy Valley, I responded.
“Well, that’s not in Blowing Rock or Lenoir.”
I noticed that he had only four toes on his left foot, and I briefly considered smashing two of the others. “I know. I just . . .”
“Don’t really matter, none. There ain’t no paved roads for twelve miles of here in any direction.” I grimaced beneath my mask.
“So, really, the best thing to do is to turn around and go back the way you came.”
We chatted for a few more minutes before I walked back to Flash, who was pouting in a sandy parking spot. I sat for a second and then gently eased back onto the decidedly-not-paved road. I waved back at Daisy and the old fellow, and started the long bounce back down the mountain.
SATURDAY EVENING
Photographers call the hours between late afternoon and sunset the “Golden Hours.” Colors are more intense, and shadows lengthen. It’s my favorite time of day.
One of the things I had hoped to do while in the mountains was learn how to use my little camera to take long-exposure pictures of the Milky Way. I had asked for advice from a Facebook group I had joined a few week ago and watched several YouTube videos. I had added a tripod to my over-full duffel bag, and I had taught myself how to control the aperture, set the ISO, and how to use the camera's timer so I could start the shot after I had stepped away thereby reducing camera shake. I had an app that could tell me when the sky would be the clearest in my area and another that would show me exactly where to look for the Milky Way. Unfortunately, the thing I hadn't planned for was the moon. On the one really clear night I had, the nearly full-moon was like a beautiful floodlight that illuminated the entire valley. Although I was disappointed that my preparations had been in vain, the moon was so bright that I could easily walk around the gardens at midnight and listen to the insects whirring in the fields.
SUNDAY
Sunday morning bloomed through the fog over the Yadkin River.
After watching the sunrise, I drove up the road to the Patterson School Foundation. I had a couple of friends who had started their teaching careers when the place was a boarding school, but it had stopped being an actual school in 2009. Liza has been on the board of the Patterson School Foundation for quite a while, and she is working diligently to help the other members come to consensus about what the place will be in the future. As I looked at some of the historic buildings, I can see the promise of some sort of renaissance, but it’s going to take a lot of work. I'm glad the place has Liza to champion its cause.
Attached to the Patterson School is the Western North Carolina Sculpture Park, which had some really interesting pieces – especially when they were lit by the morning sun with the mist in the background.
On Sunday evening, I drove across the valley to search for a nice spot from which I could watch the sunset. I found what I thought would be ideal place in a small athletic park that was closed because of COVID 19. I parked Flash on a slight slope, set the parking brake, and walked the dirt path that went around the grassy fields and up to a concession stand. The only sounds I could hear were the cicadas buzzing their eerie songs in the trees and the occasional car that passed by. No birds. No dogs. No roosters (which, contrary to popular belief, do not just crow at dawn – they do it whenever they darn well please). And then I heard thunder. From over the eastern hills behind me, I detected the rumbles. I had forty-five minutes before the sun set, so I thought I had time. However, the storm came on quickly, and the one thing I had really learned during my two Outward Bound trips was that you don't take chances with lightning. I hopped and hobbled back to Flash and got to him just as the rain started to fall.
I did manage to get this shot:
MONDAY
Monday was my day to leave Ripshin Farm, and it opened with a steady downpour that lasted until about 10:30. So, I worked on this project for a bit, ate breakfast, and packed my things. As I loaded the car, Liza called from the window to wish me a safe trip home and a good school year. I thanked her and said I hoped to be back again. And I meant it. Liza and William are wonderful people, and their farm is a beautiful, spiritual place. There's something about it that makes the politics, the pandemic, and the protests seem very far away. As I drove home into darkening skies, I made myself a promise that one day, I'd go back to the garret.
But I'd figure out how to take a bath before I went next time.