“I’ve got those blue ridge mountain blues/and I’ll stand right here to say/my grip is packed to travel and I’m scratching gravel/for the blue ridge far away.”

-Earl Scruggs, “Blue Ridge Mountain Blues”

Roanoke, Virginia is the sort of place where folks stop to say hello as they pass you on the street, where people bring you eggs fresh from the farm, where you are likely to see a living Frida Kahlo painting in a storefront window, where swarms of starlings sing from the downtown trees each night. Roanoke is where you can say, “good morning,” to someone in the local coffee shop and and then see that person later in the day at the mobilebooth to share a story. It’s the type of place where a woman you a hardly know will make you apple pie, where folks invite you into their homes for dinner, or a pancake breakfast extravaganza, and even into their recording studios. But don’t be fooled by the small town charm, Roanoke, Virginia is also where journalists from across the Atlantic and big shots like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton come to find out what Americans, like you and me, think about our country and our future. Its where the MobileEast Booth was lucky to be for a whole month and its a place we are sad to leave.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bA59BNfATM[/youtube]