Mount Airy's (N.C.) Emily B. Taylor Greenway

My husband, Chris, often says, "Everybody wants a trail nowadays." And it seems like that's true.

Seems like every town is discussing ways to become more walkable and offer passive recreation to residents.

That's a good thing, in my opinion. I don't think I ever want to live in a place that doesn't have miles of trails. I've gotten quite spoiled with the wide variety of trails in Southwest Virginia since moving here five years ago.

One of the trails we frequent is the Emily B. Taylor Greenway, located in nearby Mount Airy, N.C. It's proved useful during the past couple of months since we're still covered in snow here in Virginia.

This trail is paved, which must contribute to how quickly the snow disappeared on most of the trail, allowing walkers and bikers to take advantage of it during the winter weather. Most of our trails in Hillsville are mulched, dirt or gravel and are still holding onto snow.

Of course, we've gotten more snow so that's most likely the cause. We haven't seen the grass in our yard, except for a week last month, since before Christmas.

Anyway, back to the greenway. The Emily B. Taylor Greenway is 2 3/8 miles of a paved trail that follows along a creek and U.S. 52 from Worth Street to West Lebanon Street.

Each quarter mile is marked with a granite marker, courtesy of Mount Airy Granite.

Although the photos above are nice areas of the trail, most of the scenery is the highway, industrial buildings and restaurants. And it's visited by a lot of people. So it's not that peaceful.

But that doesn't mean you won't see wildlife. Below are two pictures I took on a recent walk. On the left is a belted kingfisher and the right is, of course, a white-tailed deer.

Sorry for the quality of the photos. If I had taken Chris' camera and zoom lens I might have been able to snap closer, clearer and better pictures. Actually, I'm surprised these turned out as well as they did.

We also often see robins, blue birds and sparrows.

Occasionally we've seen a heron (I think a great blue). On a walk last year, a friend swore she heard a yellow warbler, which she said is hard to spot and hear because the bird is usually very shy.