The Beauty of It All

As we drove into Buchanan County the mountains seemed to rise up from underneath us. The autumn leaves were just beginning to dot the wooded canvas with accents of yellows, oranges, and reds. We couldn’t have picked a better time to visit the Appalachian range. As you drove into civilization however, the mountains were bordered by lines of rundown shops and houses with their windows long since boarded up. It was apparent that the place at one point had flourished economically and boomed with life. It was easy to picture the scene from the past with women walking to the store to pick up their daily groceries and the kids playing together on the side of the street. There were no kids playing by the street anymore, only the traditional Pepsi sign hanging crookedly by its one remaining hinge. Hanging on like the town appeared to be. The scene was indeed depressing, but we had our hopes restored when we were taken to the Breaks Interstate Park. It had been recommended by basically everyone we talked to and rightfully so. Our guide was Ed the schoolteacher who I wrote of before. He was beaming with life when we met him and was clearly excited to show us this Appalachian paradise. He took us to a few look out points where the mountains appeared to fade endlessly into the horizon, streams ducked and dodged there way through the nooks and valleys, and cliffs shot up like giants looming over it all. He told us that many people called the park the Grand Canyon of the East, and having been to both I would say that the Breaks have a certain degree of beauty added by the trees that the Grand Canyon lacks. Ed told us stories about the families that use to live in the area: how they got by on making moonshine. He told us about battles that occurred nearby during the civil war and other events that took place in the area. As we hiked through the park it was evident why people had moved to the area originally. Mother Nature was in her finest element in this park. It was obvious how people had fallen in love with the jagged rock faces, the trees that just brushed the skies, and wildlife that scampered constantly through the shadows. There was something so brilliant in the nature of it all, as if this was one of few areas that remained pure and untouched. It was obvious why the people of Appalachia had fallen in love with the mountains and why they were so willing to fight to keep them as beautiful as ever.