Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 9.04 Travel
Presentation #1 Title
Down the Blue Ridge Parkway: Taking the Scenic Route in a Time of Austerity Measures
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
In June 2014, the author fulfilled a life-long dream of driving the entire Blue Ridge Parkway, making him just the third member of his family to accomplish this rather modest feat. Over the course of a week of hiking and car camping, he subjected himself to park facilities in disrepair, the odd sadness that is the James River Water Gap, the supreme joys of the out and back hike in the mountains of Virginia, confronting his fears and serious injury on Grandfather Mountain, and ending his trip on a mountain that he and his late father walked to the top of twenty years earlier. All of the highlights and lowlights of time well spent traveling alone are detailed in this travel essay that charts a journey through a park that has perhaps seen better days. This presentation serves as a time capsule through mountains, mist, and the never-ending need for a relatively clean restroom.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Cody Lumpkin is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Marshall University. He has had work published recently in Prairie Schooner and Weber: The Contemporary West.
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
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Down the Blue Ridge Parkway: Taking the Scenic Route in a Time of Austerity Measures
In June 2014, the author fulfilled a life-long dream of driving the entire Blue Ridge Parkway, making him just the third member of his family to accomplish this rather modest feat. Over the course of a week of hiking and car camping, he subjected himself to park facilities in disrepair, the odd sadness that is the James River Water Gap, the supreme joys of the out and back hike in the mountains of Virginia, confronting his fears and serious injury on Grandfather Mountain, and ending his trip on a mountain that he and his late father walked to the top of twenty years earlier. All of the highlights and lowlights of time well spent traveling alone are detailed in this travel essay that charts a journey through a park that has perhaps seen better days. This presentation serves as a time capsule through mountains, mist, and the never-ending need for a relatively clean restroom.
