The first of February—harsh and cold, air that pierces your skin and makes it numb if you’re outside too long. The snow from last week was not fresh anymore, melting into the concrete and making the ground wet. These were not the perfect conditions for travel, and yet, my friends and I wanted to utilize our free weekend to see the mountains. Shenandoah National Park has become a favorite travel site of mine. The hikes are strenuous, especially in the summertime. I don’t like to sweat, so visiting when it’s cold is optimal, especially when you want to avoid the crowd. However, my friends and I did not dress well for the occasion, so we opted to stick to Skyline Drive. From the National Park Service: “The Skyline Drive runs 105 miles north and south along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Shenandoah National Park and is the only public road through the Park.” We only traveled about an hour and a half from beginning to end, ending up in Luray, Virginia.
Pezzullo’s reflection on the interconnectedness of all things, from dog and human to toxic chemical and womb, resonates with my daily experiences. My dog, a nine-year-old chocolate lab, is inseparable from me—emotionally, she supports me as much as I support her. As we take the journey on Skyline Drive, her presence reminds me that we are part of a larger web of interactions. We are not separate from every other thing. I’m mindful to clean up after her not just out of courtesy, but because her waste, like everything in nature, is part of a delicate balance. Disposing of waste reflects our shared responsibility to keep nature from being disrupted by pollution, acknowledging that any attempt to ‘conquer’ or separate ourselves from nature can have consequences.
In places more populated by people, we may interact with gardens, oxygen, rain, squirrels, lead, and more. In other words, wherever we are, biochemical processes interact between dog and human, toxic chemical and womb, and excrement and waterways. Any attempt to separate ourselves out and ‘conquer’ nature, therefore, becomes our Achilles’ heel (Pezzullo).
Pezzullo, Phaedra C. “Environment.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, by Phaedra C. Pezzullo, Oxford University Press, 2017. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.575.
As we drove along, we’d hop out at each overlook, taking in the gorgeous views of the Virginian mountains. Something that caught my eye was the interpretive signage along almost every overlook, enticing the viewer in to read about the history or uniqueness of each sight. The photo above is not mine, but it is similar to the one that I read on our trip. The visual and textual rhetoric reminded me of our chapter on Visual and Market Advocacy. Particularly, where the image says “the scenic highway should also provide opportunities for recreation and the simple pleasure of enjoying the view. To accomplish this, civil engineers devised clever ways to build a scenic-yet-stable road in steep and rocky terrian. The careful attention to the driving experience means that you hardly notice the road as you travel along.”
The signage emphasizes that despite humans having a large part in building these roads, you cannot notice this, as the scenery takes over your main perceptions. In Pezzullo and Cox’s Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere, they state, “When Watkins portrayed Yosemite Valley as wilderness, devoid of humans, he also helped construct a national myth of pristine nature that was harmful” (pg 133). Acknowledging the forceful removal of peoples in the America that were here long before us is also important when regarding the beauty of natural spaces. Many tribes, such as the Manahoac peoples, were located in the Shenandoah and Fredericksburg areas before European colonialism.
Works Cited
Cox, J. Robert, and Phaedra Carmen Pezzullo. Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere. Fifth edition., SAGE Publications, 2021.
Pezzullo, Phaedra C. “Environment.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, by Phaedra C. Pezzullo, Oxford University Press, 2017. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.575.