Easter Eggs And The Parkway's Future
Rachael Eldridge, author of the event
Last year this time, there was snow on the ground because my wife and I were planning to go to the Moses Cone Estate to observe our first Blue Ridge Parkway Egg Scramble and Raffle. We didn’t go, but this year I kept a turned eye towards this past Saturday and waffled about going. But last week, Tina White, the Parkway’s district interpreter made a special invitation. The idea of a low impact weekend after some minor surgery seemed to be the right ticket …. and it was.
This is the fifth year of this event; first conceived by Rachael Eldridge, operations manager for the Southern Highland’s Craft Guild’s Craft Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I asked Rachael about her idea and she said, “this is the perfect way to get kids and families to the Parkway and to the Cone Mansion at the beginning of our retail season to welcome spring.”
Over 300 adults and youngsters attended and kids scrambled “on signal” to collect the brightly colored plastic and toy-laden eggs that littered the Mansion’s side and front yards. I had never attended one of these events before in my life eventhough I remember growing up and searching for eggs that my parents had hidden for my sister and I in the flower garden.
Ranger Tina White insured that each child left with their own Easter egg
I later saw Ranger Tina with her own basket of eggs which seemed odd to me at the time. I asked my wife about this later on our trip back to Winston-Salem. She said, “Tina made sure that every child who left the Parkway that day left with their very own egg.”
Well, of course. As I have told countless audiences …. “People who return to the Parkway year after year do so because their earliest memory is almost always a pleasant childhood memory.”
Share the Journey!
A video of the event is now posted on the Parkway Foundation’s YouTube Site.
