Somebody told me that the trolley actually goes up Mill Mountain at one point in its route. Is that true?
Ah, the things we’re left to ponder when we’re too apathetic to Google a schedule. These are the mysteries faced by the lazy.
Tag Archives: Virginia
It’s a bird … It’s a plane …
I took this video a few hours ago, just before that brief thunderstorm over Roanoke. This looks like one of those AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) planes that the military uses, doesn’t it? (See the dish-shaped radar device atop it.) It was circling the area.
I remember seeing these in the 1980’s as a kid on Long Island (along with plenty of F-14 “Tomcats” buzzing our neighborhood), because Grumman Aerospace had a major plant out in Calverton. They actually designed and tested new fighter jets there — which the kids thought was pretty neat.) The AWACS aircraft were the planes that could detect incoming planes or missiles from Russia. (Nowadays, Senate Republicans would block funding for that sort of thing.)
I suppose this could be a civilian plane … I can only imagine that the radar technology has other applications. I honestly don’t know.
You know what would be the perfect weekly Sunday morning trip?
A little Fredericksburg, VA, side street with a used bookstore, and indie comic shop, and a diner where you could get tons of coffee and omelettes.
The diner would have wifi. The comic shop owner would be a chill, affable local dude you could shoot the breeze with about the medium, or about current events. The used bookstore would sell a worn, dog-eared pocket dictionary so that you could learn to finally spell the word “omelette” correctly the first time. (I might just tear out that page and carry it in my wallet, along with the page containing “Pennsylvania.”)
And the entire street would be a block from the Rappahannock River, so you could take a stroll afterward.
Artwork outside Wilson Hughes Gallery, Roanoke, Virginia.
Campbell Avenue. February 2019.
Campbell Avenue and Market Square, Roanoke, Virginia, January 2019
My cell phone camera is kinda terrible at night. Sorry.
The Mill Mountain Star, seen from Campbell Avenue, Roanoke, VA
January 2019.
Rockfish Gap, Virginia, January 2019
Looking South from Route 64.
Elm Avenue and Main Street Bridge, Roanoke, Virginia
December 2018.
That’s B&D Comics at the end of Elm Avenue, right before the street turns into Main Street Bridge as it crosses over the railroad tracks and the Roanoke River. There’s something indefinably quaint and cool about the town’s comic shop being “down by the train tracks.” To answer the sign’s query, comics were 75 cents when I was a kid.
The shots of the bridge and river here are poor. (Sorry.) But it’s actually a pretty spot in Roanoke on a nice day.
Roanoke, Virginia, December 2018
It’s the categorically quiet Southern city. New Yorkers, this is midday during the holiday shopping season.
It’s an odd impression to get, but sometimes I feel as though I am walking through a university campus during Christmas break. (All the buildings are there, but all the students are away.)
But when you do run into people, they are the friendliest and most cheerful that you could ever hope to meet. I was just walking by and a local friend called out to me from her car on 1st Street. I love this sleepy town.
Thus begins my illustrious career as an abstract filmmaker.
Pretty avant-garde, no? I’m calling it “Snowfall.” Bring on the accolades. (You know how I always want ’em.)
I’m … actually not sure that I could fully define “avant-garde” if you put me on the spot without Google. It’s a lot like “postmodernism” that way.
Anyway, this was the winter’s first snowfall here in Roanoke today, just two weeks ahead of Christmas 2018. Look at the size of those flakes. They are so big that you can actually hear them striking the ground. I’m serious! Play the video with the sound on!
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 