More ideas on small business

Because I'm not ready to talk midterms yet? Seriously, I had more on my heart after this past weekend.

In case you were wondering, my wife and I went down incognito once again to a little place in the hills of Virginia. Here’s a late afternoon view from the back deck of our cabin, courtesy of my photographer wife.

Don’t you like how the setting sun just catches the top of the adjacent ridge? We hadn’t been to this resort since the fall of 2019. Oddly enough, while the pandemic affected our plans for a return to some extent (we like to go about every 18 months), the owner said business really never waned because people wanted to get out of the city.

One thing that struck me about this region on this trip - having the concept of small business fresh on my mind - was that it’s a lot like our area with respect to catering to a tourist trade. But while slower lower Delaware also has a significant agricultural base to lean on, the area we visited (Page County, Virginia) doesn’t seem to have that to offer. There were a few cattle and horse farms around - and a number of wineries - but most of the rural land is wooded. (A portion of it is part of Shenandoah National Park, the outskirts of which actually lay across the gravel road from our resort.)

So it seems at first glance that people around there have a limited number of job opportunities, but then it came to me that many of the locals are those who have built small businesses, one case in point being our resort called Shadow Mountain Escape. Not only that, but to increase the synergy between related interests the owners created the Blue Ridge Whisky Wine Loop, which integrates local breweries, wineries, lodging, dining, and other attractions as well. We spent a portion of one of our two full days there between one of the BRWWL distilleries and one of its wineries, as well as seeing some of the back country off the beaten path. (On our previous trip we lucked out and were there for an Oktoberfest festival one town over which had a handful of the local breweries, as well as other vendors.) These entrepreneurs aren’t afraid to multitask, either, as they also offer such diverse items as meat, wool, and horse boarding, just as a couple examples.

Of course, that’s not to say there’s no poverty or other issues in the Shenandoah Valley - the number of vacant and abandoned houses and farms can attest to that. In that respect it’s no different than any number of rural areas around the country. I will also grant that the area depends on having a wealthier class of people an hour or two away who enjoy the region precisely because it is rural and can give them some of the items that are unique and aren’t necessarily mass-marketed at their local grocery store. (I had the distinct displeasure of dealing with their urban area traffic twice.) But the Shenandoah Valley seems to take as much pride in its artisans as anywhere, and several of them have put in the hard work to make a go at it so that they can lead middle-class lives.

That’s the thing about our country as it’s supposed to be, though: people tend to take what they have available to them and make something of themselves. Our hosts have spent their last twenty years improving their property and building on their success so that others around them could be successful too, and it’s something I think worth highlighting because they go more than the extra mile to make customers happy. That’s what’s great about small business in America.

By the time I do my next Substack we should have the election results in curing concrete, if not stone, and those will dictate the direction I take with it.