John offered to take me on a day trip of my choosing between his trips to Tennessee and New York. We both decided the first one I mentioned would be saved for a day with our grandsons. That one involved beautiful views of mountains and a hike to a waterfall. We headed for Beech Mountain and Banner Elk. We found out that Beech Mountain is the town at the highest altitude east of the Rockies. The off-season population is 350. It swells considerably during ski season, and probably in the spring and autumn, too. I took one photograph from Beech Mountain that shows mountains in the distance and a restaurant that is for sale.
Banner Elk sits below Beech Mountain and has a population of just over 1,000. I didn’t take any pictures in the town, but the live webcam (http://www.resortcams.com/webcams/banner-elk/) sits atop the restaurant where we ate lunch.
John picked a mountain road to begin our trip home. As we drove, I asked, “Is this the area where we saw the mailbox that was high off the ground?”
Within five minutes, I saw it. By the time I’d commented on it, we were beyond it. John offered to turn around, but I said I’d find the picture I took before. Four years ago, I wrote the following about son John $’s tour:
As we drove down a small road, I exclaimed about a mailbox and insisted $ turn around so he and his dad could see it, too. There with other normal boxes was one way up high in the air. Someone must have installed it as a prank. The photo doesn’t show it, but the box was painted in red, white, and blue, with US Mail clearly written on the side.
Here is the original photo:
I wonder if that mailbox was installed when we still had air mail.
Mehrling Muse 
How nice❤️
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How much you notice during your trips, and even with the beautiful scenery to distract.
Is the weather still good ?
Susie
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We’re having some lovely days. I had the doors open while sitting at the computer. Hearing the birds and feeling the warm breeze was delightful.
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Why is it so high? It’s maybe just to attract passersby.
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I think the mailbox is high just to be silly. John says there are places where they have to be able to raise the mailbox because of the build-up of snow during the winter.
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Oh. Do they really place letters/mails there?
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I’m sure there is nothing in the mailbox I saw on a tall pole. John was talking about places in the US where the snow gets very deep. I have no idea how deep, though.
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Perhaps the height is indicative of winter’s snow cat mail delivery, oops, that’s Mt Washington in NH. Has the mirror been moved yet? PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/super-tunnel.html had a good show on 5/3, and I thought of John of course.
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The mirror hasn’t been moved up yet. Today John is driving to NY to pick up grandson David from college. The one for whom the mirror moves will graduate from high school about a month from now. We think he is coming here for the summer.
Thanks for thinking of John when you saw the show on the super tunnel. I’ll forward the link to him, but he won’t have a chance to look at it for several days.
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That is so cool you got a road trip:)
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I think that uh p-in-the-air mailbox is really a bird house. 😁
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You could be right. I didn’t fly up there to look.
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“Airmail”! LOLOL! That’s hilarious!
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This is the only terribly high mailbox I’ve ever seen, but neighbor Marla said she saw them in Indiana when she lived there.
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Really?? Who knew!? It must be a “thing,” as they say!
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I hadn’t thought to Google it. I would do that, but I’m going with John to pick up our repaired car.
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There is a mailbox like this near me and I often wonder why. It’s interesting there are more of these. 😊
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I wish I could find out how many super-high mailboxes there are.
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