Homage to Birdwood

It's such a pleasure to live in Charlottesville and be a part of the University community and play the Birdwood Golf Course. I never fail to see deer running across the fairway every time I play. The views, especially as the sun starts to set, are just amazing, especially when up near the clubhouse on the plateau when you're coming in on 18. The plateau that the clubhouse sits on provides a great view of the surrounding hills that comprise the Ragged Mountains, the mountains featured in A Tale of the Ragged Mountains by Edgar Allan Poe, a short essay that he penned in 1850.

Poe writes about the Ragged Mountains:

The solitude seemed absolutely virgin. I could not help believing that the green sods and the gray rocks upon which I trod had been trodden never before by the foot of a human being.

I feel similar feelings sometimes when coming in on 18 at dusk as the sun sets over the Blue Ridge. It seems as if all the world is still and you are marvelously alone in the desolation of the twilight.