These are a few (poorly taken) shots of rural central Virginia between Alleghany County in the southwest and Fauquier County. It’s a beautiful journey. F. Scott Fitzgerald described the American Midwest as “that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.” I myself have always thought his description it fits the Commonwealth just fine.
Most of these aren’t great photos. For one, they were taken from a moving car, as you can tell from the reflections in the window. For another, I am a terrible photographer, as you can tell from the unintentional shot of my giant white nerd face. (My phone is new.)
The best shots were those I didn’t get. Lord knows I scrambled to get a picture of that bear on Skyline Drive, but it was a blink-and-you-miss-it opportunity.
There were other things that I saw, too, of which I’d love to have gotten pictures. The first was the thin, immaculate strip of white headstones in a family cemetery, lying adjacent to their farm’s vast, green square of a cornfield. The juxtaposition of life and death in that image was perfect. Another was a sullen-looking cow, lying in the exact center of a fenced front yard, regarding passing cars like an apathetic despot.
As you can see, what I captured are really just your standard road trip pics, but they still manage to show some of the beauty of the Commonwealth.
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Heading north.
Imbecile.
Skyline Drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah National Park. [In best Stephen Colbert voice:] “Watch out for bears!”
Creepy solitary abandoned mountain shack is creepy.
New Yorkers, these are dormitories for Chicken University, where poultry prepare earnestly to graduate someday to a culinary position with your household. (These flat, low buildings are often visible from the road in the valleys — I remember thinking that they resembled dog kennels, except that they are entirely enclosed and look quite neatly maintained.)
“Meet Virginia.”
I think this is the southern fork of the Shenandoah River, but I’m not sure …
