Long before I'd ever even imagined
doing a craft show in the High Country, I'd come to this area as a
sightseer. The building that houses the Highland House Ski Shop, pictured
above, has delighted me as a landmark for as long as I can remember.
It's at the intersection of Highway 105 and Highway 184; once upon a time this
group of buildings was a rather lonely little beacon that signified you'd come
to the road leading up to Banner Elk and Beech Mountain. Now it's one of
many buildings in a shopping area called Grandfather Village, in the shadow of
Grandfather Mountain.
Charming as the Highland House Ski
Shop is, it's not the most noticeable architectural feature of the immediate
area. I'd have to say that designation belongs to a high-rise condo that
is perched atop nearby Sugar Mountain. That huge, glaring white building
is visible for miles -- and while it may offer its occupants a spectacular
view, it is a jarring sight to anyone else. A monument to someone's
failure to blend with the environment, it should be a mandatory field trip for
every student of architecture -- Just because a thing can be done, doesn't
mean it should be done. Look at what you shouldn't do. If
you're curious about this monstrosity, you can look it up for yourself -- I
don't want a picture on my website as a constant reminder that there are people
out there who have such disregard for the natural world!
Greg and I went into Banner Elk for
errands today, and, on a whim, we checked out the Grandfather Campground.
That's where I managed to get this photo of Grandfather's profile. I'd
almost despaired of being able to get a nice picture of Grandfather Mountain,
as it seemed I was never in the right place at the right time.
Grandfather is the highest peak in
the Blue Ridge Mountains, and is certainly one of the most recognizable peaks
in the world. I read recently that there are smooth round stones, like
the ones you'd find in a riverbed, near the top of Grandfather. If
they're commonly found at the bottom of a river, how'd those stones get on top
of a mountain? Geologists say that 750 million years ago, these rocks
were carried by rivers and deposited in a valley. A continental collision
pushed that valley upward, making it into a mountaintop. Amazing.
There are so many other fantastic
natural features in this world, many (if not most) of them created by similarly
cataclysmic events. I once asked my father, a man of science who was a
devout Christian, what his beliefs were with regard to the creation of the
world -- there are Christians who flatly deny that anything on Earth can be
more than a few thousand years old ... as there are scientists who offer
geological evidence as proof that the Bible is false -- what did Daddy
believe? We were standing on the rim of Tallulah Gorge at the time, reading
about the forces of nature which produced this deep gash in the Earth's crust
anywhere from 250 to 500 million years ago. Without hesitation, Daddy
referred to the second verse of the first chapter of Genesis: "And the
earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the
deep." No timeline is offered, nor even implied, in this portion of
the creation story, Daddy said, so it more or less rendered moot any argument
by either side: the passage does not rule out the possibility of seismic events
and floods which occurred hundreds of millions of years ago, thus -- in this
instance, at least -- there is no conflict between belief in science and belief
in the Bible.
Oh. He sure had a way of
explaining tough concepts in a way that even a child could understand!
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