On the Blue Ridge Parkway

We’ve covered about 60 miles in the last three days. I know it seems meager, but we’ve climbed about 4000 feet with a ton of weight. It has been absolutely beautiful though. A long stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway was closed to cars so we had the whole thing to ourselves for two days, besides a snow plow who smiled and wave (there was no snow on the roads so I’m sure he was having a great day) and a park ranger who didn’t seem to care that we were up there.

I haven’t heard silence like this in a long time…

We’ve gathered a ton of material that needs editing, so there will be more to come on this leg of the trip. But until then, some photos.

The Road is Waiting…

Photo by Mike Belleme

We’re finally climbing on our recycled bikes today, heading into the mountains with our sun-powered mobile production studio in tow. The bags of freshly dumpstered food and roadkill bear jerky should be enough to keep us fueled throughout the week. And then there’s that handle of Wild Turkey. It’s gonna be cold out there–snow flurries are in the forecast.

It’s been a long trip just to get to this point–there is a slew of ways we could have approached the journey. We began with a vague notion of ‘modern folk’, but the full compass of the concept is still becoming clear to us. With every day immersed in kitchen conversation and pondering ingredient labels it gains a little more form. Each musician sitting in the street behind a coin-speckled hat and every island of trees stranded in an endless sea of asphalt sheds a little more light on why we’re doing this in the first place.

Even in its nascent form, the idea was compelling enough to tear Noah across an ocean to a country he had ceased to regard as home. It brought Tim away from rubbing elbows with some of Journalism’s most elite and powerful figures. It reduced us to two brothers on bicycles. A romantic enough notion, but what to do with it? There’s a fine line between an enlightening road trip and an aimless Kerouacian binge.

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The Montana House – An Urban Homestead

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Just fifteen years ago, downtown was mostly boarded up. People tell stories of street parties that raged through dawn and dilapidated industrial spaces squatted by artists. Those times are over now, and what was once a haven for dreamers and freaks has been glossed over by tourists, upscale boutiques, and yoga studios. Even with the rampant gentrification though, the city manages to hang on to a unique combination of understated southern charm and unbridled artistic expression. Musicians play banjos and fiddles in the street, and rusty pickup trucks haul supplies to small organic farms all around the city.

Asheville came into its own on these legs, and it now comprises a robust oasis of liberalism in the midst of the bible belt. The town’s been attracting the type for awhile now, and you can’t help but feel it’s become a bit mired in its own mythology. As with any trend, followers can be fickle. Style can give way to fashion, cool to hip, and cultures anchored by authenticity and creativity can sometimes degenerate into murky popularity contests.

But this is the way of things I suppose, and it’s hard to get too offended by a fad when so much of it centers around something as noble as sustainability. Converting diesel engines to run on used vegetable oil, utilizing local plants, and buying clothing second-hand can’t do too much harm. And even with all the hype buzzing around Asheville, you can still find architects in the city if you look hard enough—people building exactly the lifestyle they want for that reason alone and quietly grinning when the noise around them begins to mimic their own spontaneous tics.

We rode up to the house where Rob stood silent, eyes burning and slightly elevated to the sky. “There’s a bear.” The words came out like they were supposed to mean something, but after seeing our confounded silence, he went on.

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The Recyclery – A Bicycle Cooperative

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The searing roar of automobile engines calmly subsided as we crunched our road bikes up a dry, dusty dirt path. He said there was no address, and I’m not exactly sure what we expected. Half way up, a woman unloading a torn up sofa onto the dirt caught our eye. “Oh, you’re looking for Matty?” Her smile beamed at us. “He’s out picking up a generator. Go on up.”

The place looked less like a residence and more like a construction site. A handful of beautiful straw bale structures were scattered around the six and a half acres, spots of civilization in an expanse of overgrown clutter. Building materials and garbage and tools were strewn about, an obstacle course for the myriad chickens and turkeys clucking around. Above our heads, one of the city’s power lines tore through the sky directly above a solar panel mounted in a vegetable garden.

Matty’s laughter crept up on us with that playful enthusiasm you usually only see in children. “Yeah, we try to pretend that’s not there.” His scraggly beard clung to his chin like oily straw. “A couple of good ol’ boys came working through here and they were just like ‘Man! You guys livin’ right here under the power line and you ain’t even hooked into the grid? That’s awesome!’” The sun shot off his lip ring and he scooped up his four-year-old son.

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