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Around Town – Behind the Scenes Filming with Our State in Bryson City

December 3, 2019 by Ashley Hackshaw

A few months ago I got on the phone with James Mieczkowski, a producer with Our State, to help him out with a scouting trip to Bryson City for the series Around Town. We talked for a long time on the phone about all the places I love in the area and I gave him a list of locals that would serve as great potential tour guides for the filming.

A few weeks later James and his cameraman Jeremiah had a chance to visit Bryson City. We met for dinner (at a food truck woot!) and they asked about a good place to film the sunset, and there are a bunch of places, but the day was already getting late, so I immediately texted my friend Tammy to see if we could film from her porch way up high. As we drove up the Road to Nowhere to chase the setting sun, and as I was telling James and Jeremiah about small town life, traffic came to a standstill and suddenly we were stuck on the road behind our local high school’s homecoming court and the marching band. We laughed so hard as we inched along behind the tuxedos and tubas and watched the minutes on the clock tick away as the group marched slowly into the Maroon Devil Stadium. I told them I’d planned it all just for them.

We made it just in time to Tammy’s house and she, her husband Dave and two little boys welcomed us onto their porch that looks east over the Smoky Mountains with peaks all the way into Tennessee. The sunset was perfection for filming:

As James and Jeremiah dropped me off at my car later, I asked if they’d decided on a tour guide yet for the show and James said, “Well, we were hoping YOU would do it.” I laughed…and almost threw up in my mouth a little. I hadn’t put myself on the list….it was the farthest thing from my mind. I’m always a little hesitant with things like this because I don’t want any of the focus to be on our businesses or my cancer story…just Bryson City and the Smoky Mountains…but I told James I would think about it and let him know in a few days.

Guess what my answer was:

The day came for filming and I was so nervous. I can tour guide all day long but when a camera turns on for some reason it becomes harder…but it got easier as the day went on. Maybe it just takes practice but my friend Nate Darnell was a natural. He needs his own TV show. Anyway, I would love for you to watch the short film! It takes you through our Airbnb house 61 Park and then the train and to Darnell Farms and then out to one of my favorite secret little places:

So anyway, I’m really glad I said yes. I was scared and I decided I should just go for it….because I do have a lot of stuff to say and share about our small town. I love story telling and taking people off the main road….and what I loved so much about James, EB and the crew is how willing they were to go that way. And I love how the video turned out! They really captured what I love about this place. We literally filmed from 7:30 in the morning until sunset. The crew and the host EB were so much fun. I was really sad for them to leave. And then they asked me to come over for pizza and I was like “okay my new best friends!” And then I came home and slept for 10 hours. Phew.

Oh Tammy and Dave’s sunset view is at 0:24!

Also here are a few behind the scenes photos:

On the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad:

On the front of the train (they NEVER let anyone climb aboard the train engine so just this would have made my entire day):

Skipping rocks in the Nantahala River:

Nate Darnell getting his mic on:

Post filming at Darnell Farms:

Filming in the pumpkin patch:

Me filming the crew in the pumpkin patch:

Filming in the corn maze:

Sitting on the back of old Bessie:

Me, Nate and EB:

Taking a break in the pumpkin patch:

It really was a day I’ll never forget…and so many things just fell into place. The video is also posted here on Our State with a travel guide to some of the places we went.

Also, maybe you remember the time Our State came to town and wrote an article about the new generation? Here it is if you want to check it out. Our State has always done such a great job of really capturing something genuine.

And I’m thinking about starting my own YouTube series now. Just kidding.

Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest and 400 Year Old Trees

December 1, 2019 by Ashley Hackshaw

On Thanksgiving Day one of the only things I wanted to do was to hike at Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest because of these enormous trees:

We ate Thanksgiving dinner early at Tapoco Lodge and over dessert I was able to convince almost everyone to go, probably since it was on the way home. Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest is only 13.5 miles from Tapoco and is a huge old growth tract of forest with trees dating over 400 years old:

Joyce Kilmer was killed in action during World War I and this 3,800-acre tract of uncut old growth forest was dedicated to his memory in 1936.

What’s amazing about this place is that these trees have survived. The giant American chestnut trees were wiped out in the 1920s by a fungus and the wooly adelgid has preyed on the enormous “redwoods of the east” Hemlock trees since around the same time. Now only the tulip poplars remain as the largest trees in this area, some reaching as high as 100 feet:

And some of the trees are almost 20 feet in circumference:

It’s a beautiful 2-mile hike that starts out next to the Little Santeetlah Creek:

It’s not a difficult hike and it meanders through the rhododendron and fern lined trail:

About halfway up the first loop the big trees start to appear:

The trail is a figure eight and where the two loops meet there is a memorial plaque to Kilmer. The bottom loop is 1.25 miles.

One of Joyce Kilmer’s most well known poems is Trees:

“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.”

The upper loop trail (.75 miles) is wide open during the winter and you can see everything around:

The forest feels a bit mysterious maybe because of how untouched it is:

It feels a bit like Narnia too:

We stopped for a while to try and climb:

Brett made it up the highest:

At over 400 years old some of these trees have lived to witness the Trail of Tears, the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War….and so much more:

Treehuggers:

I take in so much when I hike I’m usually left behind. As everyone else hiked ahead I took photos of so many textures and flora and fauna. Here’s what 400 year old tree bark looks like:

I found this beautiful pile of feathers…the circle of life involving what I think was a female cardinal and maybe a hawk:

Some kind of wood munching insect left these marks:

A downed tree big enough to climb into:

Moss and a Partridge Berry peeking out from under the leaves:

Trailing moss on a log:

And sometimes I find things that look like other things…this log reminded me of a sperm whale:

There’s plenty of water on the trail….little streams to cross:

Tiny reflection pools:

Bridges to cross:

As the sun set and the shadows grew longer and longer I made sure to stay on the trial because apparently more hikers have gotten lost in the Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness than in any other place in North Carolina. My mom had started out the hike with us and then decided not to do the second loop so she headed down by herself. When we were finishing up the last loop we found her hat in the middle of the trail so you can only imagine what went through my mind. I listen to way too many Dateline podcasts. (She was fine…just accidentally dropped her hat.)

At the very end of the hike there are still scars from the 2017 Nantahala wildfire, one of the largest ever in Western NC:

It was a beautiful day! Here’s a pic of the four of us before the hike at Tapoco Lodge:

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and weekend. So much to be thankful for!

Here is the location of Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest on Google Maps:

I also have a bunch of my favorite places to visit and hike in Western NC at this link if you are interested!

Finishing up the One Twenty Main Store Renovation

November 25, 2019 by Ashley Hackshaw

How do I speed through the past few weeks to the big reveal? I can’t believe how fast the transformation of the store building has gone…and you guys….my little store is open!

But first…remember what it looked like before?!

Oh and then this phase:

I think the last thing I post about was the plumbing and the framing. The walls are just whitewashed pine planks but the ceiling is a beautiful birch that we left unfinished. After all that was finished the guys filled in the concrete patches and sanded the floor down as flat as possible. Still trying to figure out what was on the left side, the big rectangle on the floor, maybe where a large display case or something used to be?

Here’s what we used to coat the floor: Vivid Acid Stain from Concrete Coatings

It’s a really easy process requiring two Hudson sprayers. First coat the floor with a mist of water and then coat the floor with a mist of stain:

Here’s what it looks like freshly coated:

And here’s when the stain has taken effect and dried:

Next up was baseboards, trim and of course lighting:

I found these hanging pendant lights online and they come in sets of two so that made them really affordable:

The window seats had to be rebuilt but we put them back just as they were before:

Jaime made the doors out of wood salvaged from the Sixty-One Park farmhouse:

We saved the original store front door for the bathroom…just put a clear coat on it. It still needs some frosted privacy glass:

And then this is my most favorite part…the guys built me this enormous 12 foot bar that I can work at and also hold classes at:

I must have sanded and stained that bar 20 times:

That cool old sign in the loft area is from the old Everett Building in downtown Bryson. You can see it in this photo from 1971:

I’ve never done retail before so I just started making it all up as I go. Like I need furniture and displays right? I saw this piece at a thrift store and drove back first thing the next morning to get it:

I made these shelves myself from Ana White’s X-Shelf plans. I’ll be honest they took me a REALLY long time to make. And I got to know my Kreg pocket hole jig REALLY well.