Easter Sunday

It was a beautiful Easter Sunday, and in  the past we would have attended an Easter Sunrise service, or at least some church service.  Over the years, we have attended sunrise services at the Kitty Hawk Pier, in Elizabeth City, and here in Highlands at the Nature Center.  We have attended church in places as far away as Alexandria, Virginia and Myrtle Beach.  It seems that we have often been traveling at Easter, and so it has been interesting to worship in far-flung locations.  I recall that the church in Alexandria, where we stayed while visiting Washington D.C., was Christ Church and we sat in a box pew which the ushers went down the aisle and closed at the beginning of the service.

But church options this year are still limited, so we decided to drive to the N. C. Arboretum in Asheville, which some might say can also be a place of worship.  We had called ahead and found that the Bent Creek Bistro was open at the Arboretum and was serving very good, healthy take-out, and that's where we decided to have our "Easter Dinner."  It was outside dining only but nobody sitting in the sunny courtyard seemed to mind.  We ordered, and when someone called our name we carried our smoked turkey and provolone sandwiches to a nearby bench.

It was a memorable Easter, perhaps as nice as that time in Washington D.C. where (once they had opened up our pews) we had afterward gone to the Smithsonian and enjoyed dinner on white tablecloths while someone played classical music on the harp.  Instead of harp music we had birdsong, green grass, and trees just beginning to blossom as families strolled by on their way to the gardens.

After lunch, we walked along one of the many garden trails, which began under this arch near the Bistro.

We did not expect to see much in bloom in early April, but some of the flowering trees were just beginning to show pink and white buds.  And a little farther along the path we came upon this extravagantly overflowing Spring Snowflake.

The Arboretum is filled with some remarkable sculpture, too, from a humble carving of an owl that seemed to be growing out of a rock, to this shining silver-oak-leaf creation.

We circled around through the Forest Meadow and climbed the steps to the larger-than-life statue of Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of American landscape architecture and designer of Central Park and the Biltmore Estate.

The formal gardens are laid out between the Visitor Center and the Educational Center, and there is also a very fine Bonsai exhibit.  The central feature of these gardens is a spectacular Quilt Garden, which we have seen in full bloom in July but in April was just beginning to take shape.  Still, it was nice to walk through these just-awakening garden beds before their inhabitants had yawned, stretched, and sat up into the full splendor of summer.

The Visitor Center always has art on display, and today there was a large collection of photographs, mostly of flowers.  I have always appreciated two of the quotations written on the walls high above the art exhibits.

Our only disappointment on this beautiful day was that as we exited the Arboretum and turned right, planning to return home on the Blue Ridge Parkway - the top down on our Mini, the sun shining warmly - we discovered that it was closed.  I later found that Pisgah Inn, where we had intended to stop and watch hawks glide over the valleys below before returning down the Davidson River to Brevard, had opened on April 1, but apparently road conditions were not good along the Parkway.  They do not use snow plows or salt, and in the shade it takes a long time for ice to melt at 5,000 feet.  But the drive home along the French Broad River, and then on winding Highway 64 through Cashiers to Highlands, was absolutely beautiful, and our brief disappointment evaporated in the warm sunshine and the open air.

At the end of the day, we felt just as we had on Saturday in the Easter Parade.  It seems as if we are turning a corner, that there is healing and solace in a new season, that as Rachel Carson said, "dawn comes after night, and spring after winter."