Airplane travel is nature's way of making you look like your
passport photo. — Al Gore
The welcoming committee
Sometimes it’s best just to get in the car. That’s what we did almost as soon as we moved to Virginia. We headed south and west, about 200 miles, to Floyd County. After living a combined 15 years in Boston and then Salem, Mass. — both cities — we were eager to get back out into the country. We’d spent a glorious year in Vermont and dedicated almost every Sunday to a nearly extinct American pastime: the Sunday drive. This was our chance. Cows and barns and green fields and miles of nothing. And there was another motive, too. Music. Floyd County is famous for music.
I’d heard something on NPR about Floyd and its Friday night music traditions. A featured act or two on the “mainstage” — a rigged-up stage in the back of the Country Store — with a nominal admission charge (we paid $3.00 each) and hours of listening pleasure. This is pickin’ country, and the performers are deep into Bluegrass, Old Time and traditional Country Music. Best of all, when you exit the Country Store the evening continues: you find soloists, duets and small combos on every corner and in every parking lot throughout the downtown. Crowds of admirers cluster around each one to listen and sometimes chime in with a vocal or instrumental riff. We drifted from one group to another, practically mesmerized by the talent evident in this place. And it happens every Friday night. And then there’s FloydFest — a world music and arts festival for four days in July — featuring Rock, Bluegrass, Reggae, Folk, Cajun, Zydeco, African, World and Appalachian performers right there with art, dance and pottery classes, storytelling and poetry readings, and more. It takes place on the outskirts of town and has been going on for nearly 10 years. But how did all this happen? Why Floyd which, in reality, is in (as my husband would say) the back of beyond? Here’s the story.
Where the action is
In the mid-to-late 1600s, the area that is now Floyd County was principally an Indian hunting ground. The first white settlements in the area are traced by historians to the mid-1700s, but it wasn’t until 1831 that the county was officially formed by an act of the Virginia General Assembly. Floyd was created from neighboring Montgomery County and it was named after the governor of Virginia, John Floyd. For generations, farming, textiles and mining (nickel, cobalt, iron, copper, arsenic and soapstone) were its primary industries and Floyd continued to be a quiet, fairly isolated community on the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains. And then came the 1960s.
Floyd was discovered by the “back to the land” movement of the late 60s and early 70s. Not only did groups come here seeking rural refuge, they also brought their arts with them: music, weaving, dance, pottery, yoga — and made their own opportunities for creative living. And this same “culture of creativity” now attracts many visitors to Floyd to take in the local beauty and the surrounding sites: Chateau Morrisette and Villa Appalaccia wineries, The Floyd Country Store, The Jacksonville Center for the Arts, Floydfest, The Pickin’ Porch (for acoustic music makers and music lovers), 16 Hands pottery studio, the June Bug Center for performing arts and the Harvest Moon food store.
Today, Floyd is part of The Crooked Road, Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail, which winds through the mountains of Southwest Virginia. They say that the music along The Crooked Road is as beautiful and rugged as the land itself. If you travel along The Crooked Road Music Trail you’ll experience authentic mountain music right where it was born. And you’ll have eight major chances to try it: Ralph Stanley Museum, Country Cabin II, Carter Family Fold (yes, THAT Carter), Birthplace of Country Music Alliance, Rex Theater and Old Fiddler’s Convention, Blue Ridge Music Center, Floyd Country Store and County Sales, and the Blue Ridge Institute and Museum of Ferrum College, which for 30+ years has documented the folkways of the people living in and around the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Ambrosia Farm B&B at dawn
We never made it to FloydFest, but we will. We just stumbled upon an ordinary Friday night in Floyd and had a ball. We stayed at Ambrosia Farm Bed & Breakfast, an antiques-laden refurbished farmhouse with a large pasture that offers beautiful sunset views. turkeys and deer. The Inn’s gracious owners are Caroline and Craig. Caroline holds an MFA in ceramic sculpture and is a professional artist and teacher. She conducts summer art camps for kids and various art-related activities for all ages throughout the year. Craig is a registered engineer who has focused his career on improving the energy efficiency of the buildings in which we live, learn and work. We talked to them so long after we had “checked out” that by rights they should have charged us for an extra day. Later we toured the grounds and outbuildings and even found the pottery studio. Maybe one day we’ll go back and I’ll watch Tim try his own hand at the wheel.
Breathe . . .
The arts are alive in Floyd County and so are hand-crafted wine and spectacular views every way you look. I love the mountains. I love breathing in the crisp morning air. I adore watching the hay being rolled in an empty field. I highly recommend Floyd. Skip the airplane travel for now and see something local. Find your own Floyd. Then tell us about it.
Buon viaggio!
Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…
