The Blowing Rock: April 21, 2013

I miss Blowing Rock.  When I lived in North Carolina, Blowing Rock was my getaway spot. The town was close enough to make a last-minute weekend trip, or even a day trip.  I loved the scenic, twisting, turning journey to get there.  The town offers incredible vistas, unique shops and galleries, bed-and-breakfast inns, plentiful restaurants and even an outlet mall.  But I did not go to Blowing Rock to shop.  The lure of Blowing Rock was the peace and serenity attached to the mountain views.  In addition to being the name of the town, there is also a legendary cliff known as The Blowing Rock, which lies thousands of feet above the beautiful Johns River Gorge.  The cliff is named The Blowing Rock because the walls of the gorge force the winds to sweep up with such force that light objects cast over the cliff are blown back to the cliff. This phenomena prompted a Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” cartoon about “the only place in the world where snow falls upside down.” The Blowing Rock is also the focus of  a legendary story about two Native American lovers.  The following is an account of the Legend of The Blowing Rock quoted from The Blowing Rock website.

It is said that a Chickasaw chieftan, fearful of a white man’s admiration for his lovely daughter, journeyed far from the plains to bring her to The Blowing Rock and the care of a squaw mother. One day the maiden, daydreaming on the craggy cliff, spied a Cherokee brave wandering in the wilderness far below and playfully shot an arrow in his direction. The flirtation worked because soon he appeared before her wigwam, courted her with songs of his land and they became lovers, wandering the pathless woodlands and along the crystal streams.

One day a strange reddening of the sky brought the brave and the maiden to The Blowing Rock. To him it was a sign of trouble commanding his return to his tribe in the plains. With the maiden’s entreaties not to leave her, the brave, torn by conflict of duty and heart, leaped from The Rock into the wilderness far below. The grief-stricken maiden prayed daily to the Great Spirit until one evening with a reddening sky, a gust of wind blew her lover back onto The Rock and into her arms. From that day a perpetual wind has blown up onto The Rock from the valley below. 

I have to concede that I have never tossed an object off The Blowing Rock to see if it would be blown back.  Nor have I seen the snow fall upside down.  It doesn't matter whether those things are true or not.  I like The Blowing Rock just the way it is.