In your long hikes and woodland quests, have you ever heard some noise you can’t quite place? A growl, perhaps, or even a howl? Have you shuddered when leaves rustled or a twig snapped? Walking on your way home in dark hollers, did you have a creepy feeling that youContinue Reading

Freedom, consciousness, and wildness are all around and ever present as our feet lightly jog across an old, wooden dock. We move gently in the golden light of an aging afternoon sun. With each stride, I sense everything. Blushing coral clouds travel like vessels across a cerulean sky. Brilliant flowers,Continue Reading

The rolling, rock strewn mountain forests of Southern Appalachia can be a wonderful place to experience the vast wonders of the natural world on a peaceful hike. The region is rich with bounty. Its hills, hollows, and valleys full of wild, edible plants, tasty fruits and berries, wholesome nuts, plentifulContinue Reading

Nestled south of Asheville, next to the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Bent Creek Experimental Forest, The North Carolina Arboretum’s gardens and wooded trails are one of my favorite photo hunting grounds.  Each visit reveals new subjects and new perspectives.  During the winter holiday season, the gardens are bedecked inContinue Reading

    John Allyn Miller (1947 – 2007) lived in the Asheville area from the 1970s until 2002. He was an outdoorsman who loved being in nature, wandering backroads, trails, and streams in hopes of capturing the iconic beauty and images of Appalachia.   John taught photography at Asheville-Biltmore TechnicalContinue Reading

Grace put the top down on the old Miata and we burned the open road, our hair spinning wild as Medusa in the crisp late spring. We should travel to Monrovia, California to see Upton Sinclair’s house, she had said, and take one of those cross-country road trips on ourContinue Reading

According to the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), Appalachia “is a 205,000-square-mile region that follows the spine of the Appalachian Mountains from southern New York to northern Mississippi. It includes all of West Virginia and parts of twelve other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania,Continue Reading