Blowing Rock, NC postcard

One Fall we went to Blowing Rock, North Carolina. It was a very scenic trip.

While in the area we also went to Grandfather Mountain. I was interested in seeing the whole area, which covers Boone and Burke Counties, NC. I have been in those counties before but not since I became interested in genealogy. For some reason I have yet figured out, I like to walk over the terrain of where my ancestors walked. It probably means I am nutty as I can be.

We spent a good while on Blowing Rock, which the tourist town is named. Indians said if you throw something off the big rock it just might come back up to you. I think they probably used more mystic terms.

I think I know why things might come back. The rock named Blowing Rock in on a high mountain chain ridge. It also at the inside point where two ridges from different directions meet, forming a V. Blowing Rock is inside the V, behind the point.

So you have wind coming from the west that gets corralled in the V, like in a funnel

And when it reaches the inverted point it cannot bounce back because the wind is still blowing behind it and the only way its force can go is up.

Years ago when my friend Sam was going to Georgia Tech once he and I went to Allatoona Dam to try something. Sam, with his study of aviation and physics was pretty certain if you sailed a paper airplane off the top of the dam the air draft would carry it up and keep it up. We tried it and it worked. A little notebook paper folded airplane stayed airborne for a very long time... well, long enough for us to lose interest... remember, I have a short attention span... so, maybe we left... it might still be there, about 30 to 50 feet over the dam lazily swooping up and down with the air currents.

Boy, were we smart!!