Elmwood Park.
Sorry about the shaky cam. And my cellphone camera is obviously not high quality.
Fountain beside Hampton Inn & Suite (facing Church Avenue).
Looking north up Market Street.
The Roanoke Times.
A Banksyesque painting in front of Wok-ology on the corner of Campbell Avenue and Jefferson Street.
One look at that bright air and you can tell how hot it is here in my little Bible Belt city. Those townhouses remind me of Charleston, South Carolina’s “Rainbow Row.” Or maybe an Edward Hopper painting — I may have said so before, but this entire city is indeed Hopperesque.
I think the final frame of that second video is really nice, with the American flag appearing before the sunset over the mountains. I certainly didn’t plan it that way — that was just the spot where I happened to stop running to shoot video.
July 2021.
Roanoke used to be called “Big Lick,” of all things.
This second one I’m a little proud of — that’s the Mill Mountain Star that you see in the background at left.
Looking southwest.
I found Area 51!!! And it was taken over by the Black Oil Alien from “The X-Files.”
These are just a couple of more old Roanoke, Virginia snow pics I found chilling in my hard drive. Look at the size of those flakes. There are times when the snow falls out of the sky here in clumps.
Care to visit my gorgeous little Bible Belt city? I’ve been making these videos since 2018.
They’re not professional-grade or anything — like those Youtube walking tours of Athens or Rome. I have both a shaky hand and a shaky understanding of how to film things. Hell, in a couple of these videos I inexplicably kinda forgot how to walk. But you can still see how perfect my adopted home is.
I actually was a tour guide for a while when I was a college student. I was actually really good at it; it was back during the time before I hated people.
This is Elmwood Park and its amphitheater in Roanoke, VA. I apologize for the shaky-cam. I am also aware that “open-air amphitheater” is probably a redundancy, so I’m sorry for that too. I’m not even sure that I can spell “amphitheater” without autocorrect.
June 2021. Southeast.
I walked through a valley, ate lunch on a rock and saw four groundhogs.
Okay, it wasn’t Bilbo Baggins level or anything, but still.
More old photos from Roanoke, Virginia. I have no idea why I like blurry photos of inclement weather so much, but I do.
I found another picture of Roanoke’s truly enormous turkey vultures!! (I’m doing that thing where you rediscover those cool old photos when you clean out your computer files. Snow pics are coming.)
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 