Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation Events

Chatham Rabbits returns to the Music Center at 7 p.m., Saturday, August 15. Emerging from the fertile roots scene in the North Carolina Triangle, Chatham Rabbits is the husband-and-wife duo of Austin and Sarah McCombie. They captivate crowds with their intimate close-harmony singing. The couple favors rustic, minimalist acoustic arrangements—mainly clawhammer-style banjo and guitar—that showcase their old-time roots with compelling original songwriting.

Join Watauga County Agricultural Extension Agent, Paige Patterson, as she conducts a training session to properly prune hydrangeas at Bass Lake at Moses H. Cone Memorial Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, N.C. This is a skill needed to care for the many hydrangeas at the Cone estate. Limited to 10 volunteers- FULL AS OF 8/11. Registration is required, please contact Audrey Pearson at apearson@brpfoundation.org or (866) 308-2773, ext. 19.

Blue Ridge Parkway travelers can once again enjoy a home-style meal at The Bluffs Restaurant at Doughton Park beginning Saturday, August 22. The beloved former coffee shop at milepost 241 on the Parkway is reopening a decade after closing its doors.

Sierra Ferrell will be bringing her quirky alt-country Americana honky-tonk songs to the Music Center's outdoor amphitheater on Saturday, August 22. Ferrell cut her teeth on the rail lines, truck stops, street corners, and dingy, dimly lit listening rooms all across the land. Belting out her old-time melodies, she draws the audience into a tapestry of forlorn, star-crossed love, longing, poverty, suffering and triumph, encompassing many facets of the human spirit and the complexities of emotion that come with it.

Bill and the Belles return to the Music Center at 7 p.m., Saturday, August 29, along with Dori Freeman. Bill and the Belles explores the space created between hillbilly and urban, between vaudeville and down home, and has arrived somewhere new. They bring to the stage an uplifting show, full of humor, high spirits, and all-around revelry. Bill and the Belles play alongside America’s top country and roots music artists as the house band for the radio program, Farm and Fun Time, presented by Radio Bristol.

Mark your calendar and start practicing your cast! Our first fly-fishing fundraising tournament is slated for Thursday, September 24. The event will be held on private trophy water near Boone, North Carolina, and hosted by Chetola Resort and its Orvis-endorsed fly fishing guides. The registration fee is $500 and participation is limited. For registration information, e-mail us at flyfishing@brpfoundation.org. More details about the event will be posted in the coming weeks.