Don’t forget to look in your own backyard.
My mother, sisters, and brother live at the Outer Banks. But I bet none of them stepped foot on a beach more than half a dozen times in the past year. One of my sisters probably hasn’t stuck toe in sand in several years.
Pathetic.
But when was the last time I took a hike in the mountains? Been a while. Although I’ve been tubing, and canoing, I have yet to raft the New River. My son and daughter have never been fishing. I think that’s criminal.
Now is a great time to hit the city and National Parks. There are ten state parks in SWVA alone.
You can also try (http://www.poremsky.net/swvapark.html) as a resource for parks to visit. The song birds are out, and the plant life is incredible. I was walking down by the New River in Bisset Park yesterday and spied some gold finches, a blue bird, geese, and other water fowl that were moving too darn fast and evidently didn’t want to be recognized. Wildwood Park is a great place for identifying area wildflowers. A couple books I like to use are Wildflowers in Color by Arthur Stupka, and Wildflowers of the Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge Mountains by Oscar W. Gupton and Fred C. Swope. For bird watching try Birds of North America, with the Golden Field Guide series.
I recently flew to Michigan on a business trip. Michigan is a beautiful state, but boy, is it flat. As we landed in the bowl of the Roanoke Valley, I was reminded of the rich visual landscape we live in. And it’s right here in my own back yard.
-Lucinda McDermott Piro