The first time I saw Valle Crucis, in 2015, I was speechless, which had nothing to do with not knowing how to pronounce the name. My wife and I were riding with a friend down the twisting ribbon of Highway 194 out of Banner Elk, North Carolina, when a sweep of green opened below us. “This,” our friend told us, “is the loveliest part of the High Country.”
I read the sign as we passed.
“Vail Crucis?”
“You say it ‘valley.’ No idea why they spell it like that.”
I would later learn that it was Latin for “Vale of
