Open Studios Botetourt

Drive the back roads surrounding Roanoke and you see a lot of lovely countryside. Forgive the cliche, but especially this time of year it's as pretty as a picture.

What you likely have not seen are the actual pictures.

Ok -- technically, I believe a "picture" is a photograph, and I'm talking about paintings, and woodworking and pottery. And as it turns out, there are a number of highly talented artists who create this work in Botetourt County.

Open Studios Botetourt, subtitled, Art in the Country is an opportunity for people to visit these artists where they work -- and often live -- in order to better understand the art and the artist. I should throw in that the art is for sale.

For my story on Fox 21/27 we had time to interview two of the artists: Ed Bordett, and Dreama Kattenbraker. We visited Dreama's home, where her garage has become a cozy studio. Ed is located in an old car dealership in Fincastle, where he paints and creates hand-crafted prints amidst a collection of cool antiques, and his own gallery.

Art is like wine. You know what you like -- though I'm no expert, I can say that there is quality there. I liked a lot of what I saw. These are not amateurs or hobbyists. They take their art and their space personally. So it's a big deal that you are invited into that space.

Both Ed and Dreama felt that if people got to know the artists, learned their motivation and had a glimpse of their psyches, they might see beyond the images on the canvas.

It's no secret that arts sales have been lagging in current economy. Credit this group who decided to do something about it. they created this tour. Botetourt County Tourism is helping them, along with the Bank of Fincastle. They have a marketing plan, a brochure with a map and Ed is printing lots of signs in his shop. They even have a Facebook page.
I have spent quite a lot to time with a third artist in this group. Mark Young is a long-time running buddy. We've logged hundreds of miles training for marathons, and I've had the privilege of spending time in his studio, and adjacent home, in which much of his work is displayed. When I see one of his oils, I see Mark.

I encourage you to take advantage of where we live. Enjoy the countryside. Take a drive, see the scenery and see the art.

Miss America IX

Going fast on any boat is a thrill. But going fast in the Miss America IX is more thrilling.

Not only is the wind in your face, and the exhaust from those big Chevy engines, not to mention the unmuffled noise but there is all that wood reaching out in front of you.

And all the history behind you.

Charles Mistele recognized all of that when he saw just the shell of this boat in a warehouse in the midwest. Only in his 20’s at the time, he knew this boat was special, and felt called to be the one who resurrected her.

As we told you in the television story, he had told the owner that he wanted to buy it if it ever became available. When the phone rang two years later, the owner confided that another man was also interested, but Charles was first in line, if he could decide that same day. He and his wife drove several hours to see it.

“When we looked at the boat in the warehouse it was in terrible shape. The motors were missing, the wood needed repair, it was a mess,” he said. His wife went to sit in the car, while Charles poured over it and talked to the owner.

Halfway home, his wife said, “I’m sure glad you didn’t buy that boat.” Charles looked at her with a raised eyebrow and an tilt of the head that said, “Well actually, I did.”

There was an incredulous discussion that followed, where his wife noted that they did not yet have other essential things in their young lives, such as furniture.

The argument passed. But the boat survived.



Together they lovingly restored the Miss America IX. And it became the fast and furious attraction at boats shows when there was time to show it.

Then, two years ago, Diane became ill. “I almost lost her,” Charles told me as we sat by the dock.

He picks up the story from there. “She’s okay but in that process of healing she said, you know we’ve had this old boat all these years. We have to make an effort of taking this boat around and showing it at events where we’ve never been before. And I said, ‘Yeah some day we have to do that,’ and she took her glasses off and there was a tear in her eye and she said Chuck, someday was two years ago. We’ve got to get going. I don’t want you to be 75 … and look back and say I wish I had, I should have, I could have… Why didn’t I? I blew it.”


So now at their own expense, Charles and Diane travel the country, taking in the sites and sharing the Miss America with the nation – at their own expense.

If you get a chance, you should go see it. Like I said, this boat has some history.

Punkin' Chunker

Every television station in America will air a story on something unusual to do with pumpkins this fall. There are the stories about underwater pumpkin carving, pumpkins so large they must be lifted with a crane, and the fine art of carving intricate faces and designs that go well past the toothy grin of the jack-o-lantern on your front porch.

Into that mix then comes the genre of stories involving clever ways to hurl pumpkins across the field -- or in some cases, many fields. Delaware even hosts the national competition for pumpkin hurlers.

There are trebuchets, slingshots, and in the case of my own story, canons.

This is all great fun. Really. You might say it’s wasteful to splatter pumpkins across some random hillside, yet people line up by the hundreds to either see or do it. I’m betting you couldn’t take your eyes off the video of the Umberger brothers and young Makaela shooting these perfect pumpkins into next week.

We can wonder why it’s so much fun, perhaps even debate it. But for Bobby Williams, the third generation of his family to operate Williams Orchard it’s simple: money.


His grandfather started the 700 acre operation in the 1920’s. “Back then we could operate by growing things and selling them to local people,” he told me as we stood in front of the store that still sells apples, locally produced preserves, and yes, pumpkins. “Back in the 50’s and 60’s people had root cellars and they would back in here and buy a pick-up truck load of apples and store them all winter.”

Gradually, supermarkets, better transportation and technology combined with foreign competition made the apple business less profitable. So Bobby started planting pumpkins about 30 years ago.

The pumpkins, led to hayrides, pick-your-own patches, a corn maze, wholesale vending and the Punkin Chunker. Though the store is full of apples, Williams says pumpkins do more business. “It’s about 60-40 pumpkins,” he said.

Williams isn’t alone. Farmers across Virginia are turning to “agri-tourism” or as Williams calls it, “agri-tainment.”

That’s why he conned his son-in-law, Patrick Umberger into designing and building the Punkin’ Chunker.

It’s five dollars a pop, to shoot the Chunker, using a Wile E. Coyote-looking plunger device, but that’s not really where the money is.

“Oh, we make some money from people coming to shoot it,” says Williams, but really, it’s just an attraction.”

That it is. You can buy a pumpkin at Wal-Mart. But if you want to see a pumpkin launched out of sight from a 40 foot canon, you’ll need to drive a bit.

Williams is betting you will.

The Cycling Smiths

Troy and Tyler put on their gear before riding.

To view the story that aired on Fox, click here.

Anyone who knows me well, also knows that former Roanoke Police Sergeant Stan Smith and I go way back. We started running together in the mid-90's from the Roanoke YMCA.

Stan and I would run no matter the weather, 12 months of the year. There were the hottest, most humid days in the summer when, post run, with shoes literally squishing from sweat, we would compare our clothing to see who might still have a quarter-sized area where the sweat hadn't penetrated. If there was a single dry spot on your body then you were the loser as the other had pushed himself just a little harder.

There were many, many cold, windy, snowy and icy nights when we were the only ones running through Smith and Wasena Parks. Neither one of us wanted to be the one who backed out. So we ran. We took a lot of pride in being the hardiest souls on the road.

During those runs, Stan would talk about his son Troy, whom I later met and admired as a first class cyclist. As Troy grew into a competitive rider, I would receive updates on which events he was racing and how often he had won.

Later, a proud new grampa, Stan would talk of Troy's son, Tyler. The first steps, the first word -- all the typical grandpa stuff. A few years later he would tell stories of Sunday afternoons with Tyler in at Green Hill park, helping him to ride his little bicycle.

Eventually the police chief shifted Stan's schedule and we were no longer able to run as much. Then Stan discovered cycling, and his running days were behind him. Stan had become a cyclist.

I would occasionally ride with Stan, but there was no regular mechanism to keep us on a schedule. So we stayed in touch, but drifted apart somewhat.

Fast forward to this year. I'm participating in the Wilderness Ride in the New River Valley with my wife Mary and some friends, when Stan and a large group come rolling up at one of the rest stops, In Stan's group is grandson Tyler. Tyler was ten or eleven at the time and much smaller than the adults in the group, but he had a nice bike and full cycling kit (outfit). I asked Stan if Tyler could do the entire ride of 75 miles and he just laughed. "This is a walk in the park for Tyler," he said. He then told me about all the races Tyler was entering and winning -- often against boys three and four years older.

I made a mental note, "that's a good story."

So that's the story we did. Three generations of cycling Smiths. Stan the now-retired police officer, Troy who is still the MAN in Roanoke cycling circles, and a former member of the Virginia Tech squad, and now young Tyler who seems unfazed by weeks of cycling that include up to 300 miles. They often ride together.

During one of the interviews for the story Stan mentioned people he knows who see their grand kids, once or twice a year. He wonders how they can see so little of their grandchildren.

Others might wonder how Stan, Troy and Tyler crank out 30 mile rides as easily as most people walk their dogs.

When conceptualizing this story I really couldn't decide where to put the focus. On Tyler's success at such a young age? On a close knit family that rides together? Of three generations who just love bicycles. Maybe a focus on the DNA that enables them to do what most people cant?

In the end, it was a little of all four. I'm not sure what your take-away will be except that it's pretty cool and that as they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Fishing the New River with Mike Smith

Anyone who knows my interests knows that if it were up to me, John Carlin's Virginia would actually be John Carlin Goes Fishing In Virginia.

But, that is not what the folks at Fox had in mind when we started this segment just about a year ago. "But you can do a few fishing stories," they said.

The story I've never done is muskie fishing. Muskies, for those who don't know are kind of like freshwater barracuda. They are long and slender with a mouth full of teeth. Muskies grow to be huge. Virginia anglers consistently catch monsters over 40" long.

The problem from a TV perspective is that they are really hard to catch. You can't do a story on muskie fishing, unless someone actually catches a muskie.

So I've been asking around to find the best muskie fisherman I could. A man who ran a campground along the New River suggested I call Mike Smith at Greasy Creek Outfitters. Mike, he said, "caught a lot of muskies."

So I called Mike and asked him if he thought he could catch a muskie in the four hours or so we could devote to the story.

When he stopped laughing, he said, "No."

"It takes 10,000 casts to catch a muskie," he said. "We might catch one, but let's shoot for a big smallmouth bass and see if we don't luck into a muskie along the way."

Turns out that Mike himself is quite a story. He holds a Ph.D. and teaches English at Bluefield State in West Virginia, where he is both a professor and a dean.

He teaches when school is in session and fishes the rest of the time, guiding other fisherman looking for his expertise on his home water – the New River. He guides for Greasy Creek Outfitters and increasingly for New River Fly Fishing, which offers fly fishing only opportunities.

“I got into fly fishing 10-12 years ago and now that’s my specialty,” he told me. “I would like to fly fish exclusively.” He still takes many clients, however who prefer more conventional spin fishing.

You’d think his time would be completely used up with the two pursuits, but he’s found a way to design flies for the Flyman Fishing Company, many of which were just released this week. He’s also written several books on fishing in Virginia. (Hey – he’s got the job I want!)

(Click here for a list of books Mike has written.)

So we decided we would drift the four miles of river upstream from Austinville, throw some flies, talk about English, fly design, muskies and whatever else came up.

In the TV story you will see me casting a massive 10” muskie fly. Try that for about an hour and you’ll understand what tired means. As the day wore on and the muskies continued not to bite and my arm began to feel like it might fall off, I asked him if we weren’t at least close to the magic 10,000th cast.

“I’ve been counting,” he said. “You’re right about at 300.”

It looks like the only thing harder than catching a muskie may be doing a TV story on it.

I’m sure I’ll keep trying.

The 29er craze is real.

I've been around mountain bikes long enough to be dangerous. My wife and I bought a pair of his and hers entry level bikes in the late 80's or early 90's.

Back then it was a revelation. You could actually ride a bicycle in the woods!

Eventually there were better and better bikes in the garage, and racing came into the picture. I did ok in the lower classes, winning some gear and a Commonwealth Games medal. I also crashed in 1993 during a race at Snowshoe, breaking both of my elbows in the process.


That's pretty much my mountain bike resume. I still ride some, but most of my energy in the past 10 years has been devoted to running and riding on the road.

So it was a bit of a shock when I walked into Just the Right Gear to interview owner, proprietor and local endurance legend Steve Hetherington for this story.

The bikes are lighter, faster, feature better suspension and braking systems and have an upgraded feel over the bikes I left behind when I departed the sport for skinny tires and Nikes. I felt like a 30 year old at the prom.

The newest innovation is the 29-inch wheel set. Gradually the trend is rolling over the long established 26-inchers.

"It's a gimmick," one rider told me as she cruised into the parking lot at Carvin's Cove, fresh off the trail. "I don't see any need to change." Another rider agreed, saying he had just invested in a new frame and had an expensive set of 26-inch wheels. He was more than happy with his ride. In fact he was grinning.

Posts on the Internet suggest the larger wheels are heavier, that they don't handle as nimbly as the 29ers, and that suspended 29ers don't have the full range of motion or travel compared to the 26ers.

I put all of those questions to Hetherington, who put most of the objections to rest. He says after three years the trend is getting stronger. Half the bikes he sells in his shop -- and he just found out it's been named to Bicycling Magazine's Top 100 list -- are 29ers. He even sells a brand called Niner, which makes nothing else.

As you will see in the TV story on Fox 21/27 in our demonstration, it's clear that a larger wheel rolls over roots and rocks more easily than a smaller wheel. Likewise, it doesn't drop into ruts as deeply. The result is an easier and smoother ride in the woods.

It turns out that the 26 inch wheels go back to what was available when industry pioneers were converting old beach cruisers into trail bikes. They had 26-inch wheels, so that's where the industry went.

Now it is clearly headed down a new trail, one that looks like it will stick.

The Shot Tower -- An American Curiosity

The Shot Tower, along the New River Trail in Wythe County captured my imagination years ago. It would have been in the late 80's or early 90's when I discovered the trail as a place to ride my mountain bike. (They had just become widely available at bike shops.)

We did family outings on the trail. First with my now college-aged boys riding on the seat on the back of my bike. Later they rode their own bikes on the hard-packed surface enjoying a ride that offered nothing in the way of hills, and plenty of excitement with trestles and old railroad tunnels to ride over and through.

And there above the trail just off Interstate 77, was (and is) the Shot Tower.

In the TV story we showed how liquid (melted) lead was dumped through a sieve creating droplets that fell 150 feet. Along the way they would harden into perfectly round musket balls, or smaller, bird shot. At the bottom, the lead's fall was cushioned by a cauldron of water. Conveniently, the bottom was at river level, and boatmen could transport the product down the New River.

Though it was only used for actual shot making for a brief portion of its 200+ year history, from approximately 1804 - 1839, it stands today as a marvel and a curiosity.

On the outside, the part that sticks up into the air is a graceful structure, and unlike anything else you've ever seen. From the entrance looking down, is a shaft that drops 75 feet through solid limestone bedrock. I asked how they made that hole back then.

"With picks and shovels," said Park Interpreter Patrick McFall.

One of the many tourists who showed up while we were shooting the story asked, how they knew that 150 feet was the proper distance.

It goes back to England and a man named William Watts, who built a tower on the side of his house and kept adding on until he got the distance right. Thomas Jackson brought that information with him to Southwestern Virginia.

Somebody in the group remarked that Watts must have had a very understanding wife, to allow him to build a tower on the side of the house and play with molten lead.

Whether its carving a 75-foot hole into the landscape, making musket balls or figuring out how to make musket balls, it's cool to have the chance to marvel at how we arrived where we are today.

If you would like to see the Shot Tower, you need to plan to be there on a major summer holiday. (Labor Day is the next one on the schedule) or contact the New River Trail State Park headquarters at Foster Falls. The Rangers that I worked with on this story said they typically try to accommodate as many requests as they can -- but it's impossible to handle everything.

You might also be interested in volunteering to lead tours through the relatively new Americore program, which provides tour guides and or interpreters at all 35 of Virginia's State Parks.