THE BEGINNING

There is a well kept secret to life on Bent Mountain that separates the natives from the tourist wannabes:  the curvy mountainous 55 mile an hour road that brings you in from the Roanoke, Virginia side. The first voyage (or in the case of my 75 year old Floridian mother, every voyage) up the aptly named S-Curve results in a white knuckled, hanging on for dear life brake-stomping reaction.  Especially if said Floridian mother is the passenger.  But, shhhh….the secret is in this:  the road is perfectly banked, the views are spectacular, it’s actually a delight to drive, and there is almost no way minus a very serious flubber that you are going off the edge.

But here’s another truth.  We like it that way.  What if everyone realized that paradise were but a 20 minute drive from Cave Spring Kroger?  Well, paradise Bent Mountain would be no longer.  I think perhaps the name helps, also.  Bent MOUNTAIIIINNNN.  You’ve got to really climbbbbbb.  Certainly not anywhere someone could live and still commute to downtown Roanoke in half an hour on the world famous Blue Ridge Parkway, if you were so inclined.  Someplace way too far away to be in Blacksburg in 45 minutes. 

Well, thank you to whomever named paradise Bent Mountain.  There is mad speculation about what the Bent part means, but we’ll take it.   I think I may have preferred the address “Twelve O’clock Knob”,  but just because of the obscurity of the moniker.   I really want to live on Bent Mountain.