I kid, I kid, except for the redundancy part
(Thanks to Y Chrome for adding scale and a little ginger-headed human interest.)
Meet Mt. Chipotle, Charlottesville’s greatest current obsession. If this looks like a giant pile of sand and dirt and grime with a little bit of snow mixed in, sitting in the middle of a shopping plaza’s parking lot, let me explain. This is a giant pile of sand and dirt and grime with a little bit of snow mixed in, sitting in the middle of a shopping plaza’s parking lot.
There now, don’t you feel silly?
It has web sites dedicated to it. Everyone is talking about it. There are contests to guess the day that it will melt away entirely. It’s been featured on the news several times. When Y Chrome and I went to take pictures of Mt. Chipotle, there were groups of people taking pictures, posing in front of it, trying to scale to the top, and attempting to pull out one of the shopping carts jutting out of the side of the pile.
Tweets, blogs, and news broadcasts aside, the enthusiasm for Mt. Chipotle feels downright old-timey. Every time it’s mentioned I feel like chasing a wooden hoop down a dirt road with a stick, and getting my bloomers in a twist about this here War of Northern Aggression.
Similarly, a few years back there was a lane-wide sinkhole in the center of a really busy road in the north end of town. It was the lead story on the news for days. Field reporters slapped on their most earnest faces as the stood in front of the barricades surrounding the sinkhole. It was high drama, especially for newscasters who spend a significant amount of time reporting on the area’s high school athletics.
Considering how Charlottesville is often pitched as one of the nicest places to live in the country, vibrant with various cultural, educational and historical attractions, as well as bucolic settings and gorgeous vineyards, it might strike you as strange that Mt. Chipotle is such a sensation. After all, it doesn’t do anything of consequence and has no discernible skills or talents of which to speak—hell you might even argue that it is the most redundant, most unappealing, most intellectually dissatisfying, most horrible piece of crap ever created in Charlottesville.
But then you might remember that Charlottesville is also home to John Grisham.
Well, never mind, then.