High country harvest: a farm fresh tour of the NC highlands.

It's a sunny Summer Saturday at Altapass Orchard just off the Blue Ridge Parkway in the High Country of Western North Carolina. Judy Carson puts chairs in rows, anticipating the audience for the bluegrass, gospel, country, and storytelling performers to come. Husband Bill Carson hitches up the hay wagon, preparing to take visitors through the working orchard, which at its peak shipped 125,000 bushels per year of Grimes Goldens, Stayman Winesaps, and others.

Out under the picnic shelter in the lunch wagon, the beans simmer, cooked thick with ham hock and served with moist cornbread made from meal milled locally. Sister and co-owner Kit Carson Trubey chats with the locals who are here early, as they are each Saturday to hear the performances and talk about old times. Some are descendants of Charlie McKinney, the Scotch-Irish settler who first set up home here in the 1790s and, with four women, raised 48 kids on this land.

WHERE OUR MONEY GOES

Altapass Orchard is one place where tourists and locals mix. It's a combination roadside souvenir shop, science museum, living history museum, u-pick orchard, and community center. Western NC is rich with places like the Orchard--where locally-grown food, locally-made crafts, and historic Appalachian culture wait to be explored. Yet few who live here do.

"Most of our visitors are from out of state. They come back every year on their way down the Parkway," says Bill Carson. "We don't get many from Asheville or nearby counties. I guess there's too much going on down there already."

It's a truism that, come pretty weather, mountain-dwellers pile into the car and set out on the six-hour drive to the beach, where they rent cottages and eat seafood dinners and saltwater taffy; meanwhile, overheated coast-dwellers head for the mountains. Urbanites, whether Asheville or Atlanta based, seek relief from the heated concrete and head to whatever cool place they can fend. On opposite lanes of I-26, I-85, and I-40, they all sail by like ships passing in the night.

According to the annual Summer Vacation Survey conducted by Myvesta, a nonprofit consumer education organization, the average American spent $2,249 on their summer vacation this year. Lately, an increasing portion of that $2,249 disappears at the gas pump and into airplane tickets. Wherever we're going, the price of getting there is going up, leaving us with thinner wallets and less ability to buy locally-produced goods once we're there. Vacation time is splurge time, and where is that money going? Far, far away from home.

THE POWER OF LOCAL TRAVEL

It's odd that in our everyday lives around here (wherever here may be), we go out of our way to find cheap stuff, and it's only in faraway lands that we open our wallets and purses freely. What if this changed? If more of us found ways to have fun close to home, how many of our neighbors' jobs would be preserved? How much more money would our local governments have to create great parks and schools? Would we be more grounded in our local cultures and traditions, and more likely to care about preserving them?

Western North Carolina is full of economically-displaced workers, and many do choose to go into business for themselves. But they can't compete with large sellers of mass-produced goods, so they depend on customers who want to pay more for a better product and better service. And often those customers aren't from here, they are from far, far away.

Karen Wylie held positions in the textile and furniture industries for much of her working life. In the mid-nineties she "saw the writing on the wall" as those jobs were disappearing fast, and she opened the Blue Ridge Soap Shed with her husband, Tim Tyndall. Located just off Route 226 in Spruce Pine, a few miles up the road from the Orchard at Altapass, they handcraft soaps from ingredients as diverse as palm oil, goat milk, homegrown lavender, and kudzu essence. The ingredients are mixed with great finesse, as, unlike most soap stores, this one doesn't knock you down with a competing array of powerful perfumes. Every day at 2 pm, Tim demonstrates old-fashioned soap making techniques in an open shed beside their lush gardens.

For Tim and Karen, it's also the visitors who come back each year, making the Soap Shed a regular part of their mountain visit, that drive the success of the enterprise. To build this into a year-round income, they sell online and at multiple craft shows. With the loss of manufacturing jobs, it's creative businesses like these that keep our economy going, and, in turn, we can vote with our wallets for these businesses to stick around.

Sold on the idea of a local vacation? Altapass Orchard in McDowell County and the Blue Ridge Soap Shed located in Mitchell County in the NC High Country, are great launching-points for exploration. A day in the High Country could begin at a farmer's market. Local farmers' tailgate markets are laidback centers of commerce where people from all walks of life mingle and buy what's fresh and local. Mitchell County boasts two: a Saturday morning market in Bakersville, the County seat, and a Wednesday afternoon market in Spruce Pine. Most tailgate markets these days offer much more than beautiful produce: fresh goat cheeses, jams, baked goods, smoked fish, flowers, and herbs make the perfect ingredients for a picnic.

After visiting the Soap Shed and the Orchard, head northeast. Don't want to look like a tourist? Routes 221 and 105 run parallel to the much-touted Parkway, and here's a secret: they're every bit as pretty. High tunnels of rhododendron bloom pink all summer among massive boulders jutting over the road. In fall, the grand vistas of changing leaves can be enjoyed from a quiet roadside instead of a crowded Parkway overlook.

Route 105 takes you near Valle Crucis, North Carolina's first rural historic district. Call ahead to visit Maverick Farms, a stunning creekside property where, one weekend a month, themed farm dinners are served featuring multiple courses and all locally-raised ingredients.

Back in town in Valle Crucis, lie down and rest well at the Mast Farm Inn, a working guesthouse since the 1880s, which now has a special commitment to environmental stewardship and buying locally. Their gourmet two-course breakfast will prepare you for another day of exploring. You're now in striking distance of Boone. There you'll find working wineries, u-pick berries, mountains to climb, and more.

How to begin planning your trip? Think like a tourist and try the obvious: call your local visitor's center; pick up a local food guide at a nearby retailer or at www.appalachiangrown.org; stop at your local bookstore and buy a travel book, like Handmade in America's Farms, Gardens, & Countryside Trails or The Craft Heritage Trails of WNC. And start traveling local.

Peter Marks is the Local Food Campaign Coordinator for the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project. Contact him at 828-236-1282 or [e-mail]

See Vacation Inspiration on page 17 of this issue for more healthy and fun vacation ideas.