I grew up in Lee County, Virginia. Even though I haven’t lived there for 15 years or so, I still call it back home. It sits in the most western part of the state. It’s about half an hour or so from Kingsport, TN and about 45 mins or so from Middlesboro, KY. This county and the adjacent county, Scott County, house several mountains of the Appalachian mountain range. Powell Moutain, the one on the Tn-Va side, rises up 2500-ft. As the highway crosses near the top, you drive right into Lee County. Once you descend, you find Wallen’s creek near the bottom of the mountain and the creek cuts between Powell Mountain and Wallens Ridge, which rises 2000-ft as the highway passes through.

The valley between the two mountains includes an area called Stickleyville, VA. If you travel along a small creek that runs through that area, you can easily find where I grew up. It’s basically a narrow curvy road just off highway 58 that leads to Blackwater Mountain and the town of Jonesville, Va. Going this way is what we referred to as ‘down the creek’. This particular year, like most years for the holidays, I went back home to visit but this time I had a new DSLR. I decided before I had even left that I wanted to drive/ hike to a few of the places I had been to when I was younger to try and get some good shots for photography portfolio. Unfortunately, as soon as I got there a gray gloom filled the sky. With my optimistic mindset, I wasn’t going to let that get me down so I decided to make the best of it.

When I was young, I found a cool place to go sit and think; collect my thoughts as they say. The featured image is a view from this spot. If I ever needed to get things off my mind or write lyrics to a song, I would pack my guitar out here and strum away. The thing I loved the most about this spot was being able to be as vulnerable and naked as I possibly could. I knew no one could hear me. Although, the sounds do carry quite easily between mountains. And even if they could, there was no way they could make out what was doing. Who cared anyway! This allowed me to really be myself and reflect what is real to me. This was a huge stepping stone for me to become a real singer-songwriter. The view from here looks up along what we called, Wallens Creek.

It’s just a small creek that runs through the valley and eventually dumps out into a river. About 2.5 -miles from here you take a right turn and you’ll be on your way up Powell mountain again. If you take a left, you’d most likely be on your way towards Pennington Gap or Jonesville. I’ll leave those for another trip and another blog. Those rain clouds you see had moved rather quickly on me and nearly hindered all my prospects for photography while I was there. I spent time snapping pics around my Mom’s house and also throughout the land I once helped maintain. I had never once realized the beauty of this place so much as I do now. I really owe it all to getting a DSLR camera last year.

Over the next few days, I waited for the rain to stop. I didn’t plan for the rain at all so I figured I might as well take what I can get since I’m not here very often. While the weather was surprisingly warm for December, I decided not to let the rain spoil my trip and took off to see what kind of pics I get. Of course, if there is a body water near, I’m bound to end up at that shooting at that spot before it’s over. I played around for a while trying to get some shots of a few blue jays I had been following. Then, I thought I saw the sun poking its head through the gray. Before grabbing my gear and heading off to catch a sunset, I played around with this pond and a log for foreground composition. The shot looked good, maybe better than anticipated for such a dreary and drowsy day. The reflections in the pond were killer! One of the names on my list was Natural Tunnel State Park. I remember this park growing up mostly because the public swimming pool was nearby. I had only been to the actual park part with hiking trails a few times. I remembered a cliff, called lover’s leap and a huge tunnel that the railroad was run through back in the early 1900’s. That was the extent as to what I remembered so I figured why not go back and photograph it. Once I got there, I climbed down to see the tunnel.

There were a bunch of Christmas lights and decorations there but with it being during in the day, they just seemed to be in the way of a decent pic. I snapped a bunch, may post one or two at some point but for now, I’ll leave them out. So I continued on and headed up to the peak known as “Lover’s Leap.” Legend says a white settler fell in love with a native American girl. Both plunged to their deaths from this lookout once conflicts broke out between the new Americans and the native Americans. Of course, I would have come here to get a potential sunset. I really didn’t expect the clouds to open up, though. At least not like they did! Sometimes it is all about being in the right place at the right time. This has been one of my favorite sunset shots ever. Large prints are available if interested.



The rain was finally rolling out about the same time I headed out of town the following day. I had initially planned to try and get back to Atlanta as early as possible but once I passed this railroad trestle, I knew it was going to be a long trip back. Back in the early 1900’s, this was one of the highest trestles in the eastern United States. It rose to a whopping 167 feet above the Clinch River/Copper Creek junction. I’ve driven by this thing for years and never really paid much attention to it. They even had a parking lot to pull off and read about it. I managed to get some nice shots at random spots I stopped at along the way, well, before the rained started again. It was almost dark by that time anyhow.

I’ll be on my way back to good ole Lee County in a few weeks. You guys should know by now that I’ll be taking my camera and you better believe I’m going to be getting some pics for a new blog. I travel up into north Georgia, through the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, NC, and eventually make my way past Johnson City, TN, which will lead me towards back home. There is just so much everywhere I go that I feel inclined to take pictures and share it all with you guys. Feel free to share some places you know of as well or places you’d like me to visit, take some pics, and write up a blog about it. Make sure subscribe to my blog in the upper right corner and follow me on social media as well. I always have pics going up on Ig from all over the place. Until next time, safe travels!

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