Colors

The Blue Ridge Mountains

The Blue Ridge Mountains are a chain of mountains located in the Eastern United States.  They are part of the larger Appalachian Mountain range.  The chain got its name because they appear blue from a distance.

"Almost heaven, West Virginia,
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River.
Life is old there, older than the trees,
Younger than the mountains, growin' like a breeze.
Country roads, take me home,
To the place I belong:
West Virginia, mountain momma,
Take me home, country roads."

—John Denver, Bill Danoff, and Taffy Nivert, "Take Me Home, Country Roads"

The U.S. Navy has a ship named for the Blue Ridge Mountains, the U.S.S. Blue Ridge, which is the command ship of the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

How It's Used

"At an early morning hour most vacationers would spend unconscious, a few intrepid city dwellers outfitted in borrowed boots hunch over a creek full of watercress, carefully cutting the plants with kitchen scissors. For their hosts, farmers in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, it's the start of a regular workday. But for the visitors, it's a delicate balance between learning on the fly and trying to be of use on a working farm.

"Hoeing, seeding and picking may not sound like a holiday, yet the appeal of agritourism is gaining in the United States. More and more people want to see where their food comes from, and the same drive that leads them to visit farmers' markets or join community-supported agriculture farm-share programs draws them to the farm itself."

"Tenuous link 1: Full marks to overseas property firm Undiscovered Properties for managing to link Oscar-winner Daniel Day-Lewis to the luxury development in the US that it is promoting to British buyers. One of Day-Lewis's most famous roles was in the 1992 movie The Last of the Mohicans, which was shot almost entirely in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, the company says. There, next to Lake Lure, you will find Bill's Mountain, 'a private, exclusive and gated five-star community' where three- and four-bedroom lodges start at £272,000."

"Located about 70 miles east of downtown Atlanta and just below the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Athens is a mix of old Southern charm and modern culture. There's a booming music scene -- known for putting R.E.M., the B-52s and John Mayer on the map -- and some of the most fervent college football fans in the nation. The [U]niversity [of Georgia], with more than 30,000 students, sprawls across 615 acres and consistently ranks among the top public colleges in the country."

"The expansion of global trade may enrich the United States, as economists say, but it has overwhelmed this manufacturing area beside the Blue Ridge Mountains.

"The region has lost more of its jobs to international competition than just about anywhere else in the nation, according to federal trade-assistance statistics, as textile mills have closed, furniture factories have dwindled and even the fiber-optic plants have undergone mass layoffs. The unemployment rate is one of the highest in the nation -- about 15 percent."

"When the clock strikes midnight tonight, Sen. Robert Byrd will become the longest-serving member of Congress ever — a capstone on a remarkable career in which the adopted son of a coal miner propelled himself from poverty to the pinnacle of legislative power, where he could, did and still does send billions of federal dollars back across the Blue Ridge to help build his home state of West Virginia."

Also Known As (AKA)

The Blue Ridge

Links