
Driving along the Blue Ridge Mountains can be an excellent day trip with a breath taking view of the Shenandoah Valley . There’s loads of camping and hiking too!. The perfect weekend get away. Skyland Resort and other lodges have made considerable effort in implementing green practices through PlanetEVERgreen , the official environmental “greening” program of ARAMARK. Thirty rooms at Big Meadows Lodge were renovated utilizing all beetle-kill lumber. No new growth harvest trees were used. Other efforts have been providing local food in the dinning rooms, using environmentally friendly cleaning products, offering products made with recycled materials in their gift shops, and reducing waste by recycling and converting to products with less packaging.

Earth Alley , located off the Avenue in Hampden, offers a wide varity of home, garden and personal accessories. Fairly traded and often made with recycled materials, you’ll find bowls made from telephone wire, angels crafted from discarded tin roofing, and handbags fashioned from inner tubes. Earth Alley also offers rolling worksops in household composting, gardening and much more.

Luke Works is owned and operated by some of Baltimore’s finest artistic craftsman. All of Luke Works employees hold degrees or have extensive experience in the arts and furniture design. Although they specialize mostly in metal and concrete some others include bedroom sets or tables made from formaldehyde free wheatboard, bamboo, and reclaimed oak and all wood finishes are water-based which are low in VOC’s and HAP’s. “We use sustainably harvested forest products as well as reclaimed or recycled products whenever possible. We are always researching and testing new green and alternative products and processes.”