10 Fall Festivals in the Mountains of Western North Carolina!

Oktoberfest October 2 - 4 Annual festival featuring a variety of musicians, food and craft vendors, raffles, and children's activities. Free.

PeanutsTM The Great Pumpkin Patch Express: October 2-4, 9-11, 16-18, 23-25: Meet Charlie Brown, Lucy and Snoopy, and select your own pumpkin. Enjoy hayrides, live musical entertainment, story telling, hay bale maze, bouncy horse, apple cider, peanuts gift shop, face painting, petting zoo and trick or treating!

Madison County Heritage Festival - October 3: Annual celebration of Madison County's music, crafts and culture. Demonstrations of spinning wool, blacksmithing and apple butter making. Food vendors, 4-H exhibit and the famous Bailey Mountain Cloggers performance.

Fall Harvest Festival, Cherokee Mill October 10: Features a variety of activities, including demonstrationsfrom blacksmiths, corn-husk doll makers, local artisans and Cherokee crafters.

Harvest Festival at Raffaldini Vineyards Tour all five of the Vineyards of Swan Creek and enjoy two days of wonderful, award-winning wines, great music and entertainment, complimentary seasonal refreshments and great gift ideas while overlooking the beautiful and scenic Swan Creek AVA

Harvest Festival and Antique Tractor Show October 16 - 19 Old-fashioned bonfire, food, crafts and entertainment. The County Fair will offer competition and exhibits of jams, jellies, pies, cakes, quilts, needlework and much more.

17th Annual Fall by the Tracks October 17: Includes 65 artisians, the opening of the caboose museum, crafters demonstration, face and pumpkin painting, cake-walks, local honey, food, Fresh made, while you watch, apple cider from our own antique apple press and more!

Lake Eden Arts Festival October 15 - 18 A weekend celebration of world folk arts: music concerts, dancing, handcrafts, healing arts, poetry, kidventures and workshops. Beautiful mountain camp setting with lakes and camping.

Annual Pumpkin Fest October 23 - 24: Festival along Main Street. Crafters, Famous Pumpkin Roll, Live Music all day, Pie Eating Contest, Games, Costume Contest and Parade, Food.

Halloween Fest in Transylvania October 31: Tiny Tot Pumpkin Bowl, Cookie Decorating, Face & Hair Painting, Ghoulish Golf, & Spooky Hay Maze!

Is the sun setting on the Sunshine State?

Linda Stern, a writer for Newsweek, asks the question: Is the sun setting on the Sunshine State? Between April 2008 and April 2009, the state actually lost population for the first time in more than 100 years (excluding periods during the world wars, when troops stationed there skewed the population figures), reports the University of Florida.

While many retirees may want to flock to Florida, they can't afford to partly because they can't sell their homes up North. "People have a lot more options than just going to Florida. Many new retirement communities have been built in Maryland, Delaware, the Carolinas, and Georgia," reports E. Thomas Wetzel, president of the Retirement Living Information Center. "There's even a group of retirees called halfbacks, who went to Florida, didn't like it, came halfway back and settled in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky, where they get four seasons."


Then there's also the no-retirement model. Most working baby boomers have deferred, perhaps indefinitely, their retirement plans in the wake of the stock market and 401(k) losses over the past two years. But don't rule out Florida altogether. Despite its dwindling population, it still draws more sheer numbers of retirees than any other single state. And for those who can afford the new higher insurance and property-tax rates, there are real-estate bargains to be had.

Read the full article by Linda Stern

Lexington, VA Named One of America's Coolest Small Towns

Locals often describe this 19th-century hamlet between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains as "right out of a Norman Rockwell painting." Lexington is the kind of place where people are invested in making sure history is paid real respect. Take Hull's Drive-In Theatre: When the 1950s institution was in danger of closing in 1999, a group of 50—dubbed the Hull's Angels—banded together to save it; they succeeded after raising an initial $10,000 selling popcorn (2367 N. Lee Hwy., double feature $6, open season­ally).


Meanwhile, family-owned B&Bs like the 1868 Magnolia House Inn dot Main Street (501 S. Main St., magnoliahouseinn.com, from $139). Read the full article by Mario Lopez-Cordero in Budget Travel Magazine

Great Photography Options for Tweeters

If you have a Twitter page, try Portwiture.com It mashes together your tweet keywords and flickr photos based on those keywords and creates a mosaic of photos. This is what was generated for Florida Halfbacks:

Fall Foliage in the Blue Ridge Mountains!

Every year people flock to the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains to experience the magnificent fall foliage and it warm hues of red, yellow, orange, and brown.

A long time favorite route for viewing the spectacular fall colors is along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Parkway connects Shenandoah National Park near Waynesboro, VA (Milepost 0) with Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Cherokee, NC (Milepost 469). There are entrances and exits at all major federal and state highways and part of a Parkway experience is getting into the towns and communities of the region. Asheville and Boone, NC and Roanoke, VA are the largest cities along the way. In Virginia, Interstates 64, 81, and 77 all have directions for accessing the Parkway. The same is true for Interstates 40 and 26 in North Carolina.

Did you know though, that those beautiful colors are present all year? They're just blocked by chlorophyll, which is what gives leaves their green color. When fall evenings get longer, chlorophyll production slows allowing the other colors to become visible and can be enjoyed by hikers, photographer and locals too!

To learn more about why leaves turn color, what triggers the leaves to eventually fall, and more really interesting info, visit the Forest Service.

U.S. Mint will roll out Smoky Mountain National Park quarter in 2014

Attention coin collectors and Smoky Mountain lovers: America's most visited national park will adorn a new U.S. quarter representing Tennessee.

Next year, the U.S. Mint will begin issuing quarters that honor national sites. The Smoky Mountain coin, to be released in 2014, will be one of 56 new quarters to be rolled out starting in 2010.

More information can be found in this article by USA TODAY

See What's on Tap at Bramwell Oktoberfest

Snuggled in the Allegheny Mountains, the historic town of Bramwell hosts the traditional German celebration Oktoberfest. The 14th annual Bramwell Oktoberfest will be held on Saturday, Oct. 10, from 2 to 8 p.m. Juried beer competitions, beer tastings, food stations, live music and an artisan market will keep the town known as the "Home of the Millionaires" hopping. Guided outdoor tours of Bramwell's Millionaire Row Historic District will be available as well.

Microbreweries and home brewers will face off in competition and offer samples. Hear live music to suit many tastes including traditional folk, blues, and bluegrass.

Tickets are $18 in advance and $20 at the gate for anyone 12 and older. You can purchase tickets in advance from the Mercer County Convention and Visitors Bureau as well as finding information on area accommodations.

Bramwell is located near Bluefield on the West Virginia-Virginia border near Interstate 77 South.

For more information, visit the Bramwell Octoberfest website.

After Century of Growth, Tide Turns in Florida

By DAMIEN CAVE

Published: August 29, 2009

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — The smiling couple barreling ahead on the cover of Liberty magazine in 1926 knew exactly where to go. “Florida or Bust,” said the white paint on the car doors. “Four wheels, no brakes.”

So it has been for a century, as Florida welcomed thousands of newcomers every week, year after year, becoming the nation’s fourth-most-populous state with about 16 million people in 2000.

Imagine the shock, then, to discover that traffic is now heading the other way. That’s right, the Sunshine State is shrinking.

Already, the state’s hold on retirees is weakening, with thousands of disenchanted “halfbacks” moving to Georgia and the Carolinas in recent years. Stanley K. Smith at the University of Florida nonetheless predicts modest population increases when the economy picks up — growth of 150,000 to 200,000 people annually.