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At last Monday night’s
road-planning meeting. Mark Malik introduced the term scenic resources. This concept bears careful consideration by all of us who call Rappahannock home, whether you’re a Johnnycome-lately such as myself, or a native with “three generations in the ground.”
Malik maintained that the continuing “improvement” of county roads constitutes an irreversible drain on our scenic resources — our “landscape equity” if you will. He’s right. While the straightening and widening of our country roads offers some immediate shortterm benefits, it loses sight of the big picture, to wit. The future of Rappahannock is tourism, tourism depends on a network of beautiful roads, and twisty back roads are an integral part of that network.
The first statement (that our future is tourism) is so obvious that it requires little support. The apple business continues to fade away. Raising cattle is a break-even proposition for many of its practitioners. The major employers in the county, Faith Mountain Company and The Inn at Little Washington, are directly dependent on tourists, as are the many smaller restaurants and craft businesses.
The regular ebb and flow of tourists through Rappahannock has proven to be a rich fishing ground for many. In that sense it reminds me of Georges Bank off the New England coast, a unique place where the currents are just right to bring forth an amazing bounty. At one time lobster was piled so high on the docks of Maine that it was spread on the fields as fertilizer. Today Georges Bank is such a badly depleted resource that the New England fishing industry is on the brink of collapse — a morality tale for those who would carelessly squander their blessings.
Seeing that we all benefit from this influx of tourists (and their money), it behooves us to ask: Why do they come? I am often amazed at how many people from Georgia to Massachusetts say “Oh sure, Sperryville. Boy it’s beautiful there.” Therein lies the answer — we trade on our looks. People leave places that are fully paved, fully “improved,” and totally predictable to come to a place that is not just breathtakingly beautiful, but a little bit wild as well. That brings me to my third point: the value of crooked roads.
I recently wrote a book on landscape carpentry, and as background for the book I looked into the subject of landscape design. Landscape designers use the term tension point to describe any device, whether it be a gate, a turn in a path, or what-haveyou, that intentionally constricts or blocks the view. This leads to a sense of expectancy about what lies beyond. Then, when the view opens up again, it is as if a chorus of trumpets sounds,
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