Day 8: Troutville, VA to Christiansburg, VA
Day 9: Christiansburg, VA to Wytheville, VA
Day 10: Wytheville, VA to Troutdale, VA
Day 11: Troutdale, VA to Damascus, VA
Ear Worms:
Heart - "Alone"
"Shake Your Groove Thing" (who did this?)
The Eagles - "Take it To The Limit
Lucinda Williams - "Lost It"
An ode to quads....
Oh quads
We have bonded you and I
In a somewhat uneasy truce
You resign yourself to the climbs but always protest a little
And then those downhills - how I know they tease you
But believe me, it hurts me just as bad as it hurts you
when we have to go back up again, and again and again....
Moment: Sitting up in the misty mountains, outside a hiker/biker bunkhouse listening to the rain patter on the tin roof, strumming on my ukulele. It's a warm rain and there's the smell of woodsmoke in the distance. I breathe in the fresh, crisp air. The rain passes and up pulls the van. Steve, the bunkhouse houseparent and two Appalachian Trail thru hikers jump out. A father/son duo hiking the whole trail. We sit out on the porch and chat and then..music. The miles upon miles of lugging this little uke all paid off that evening in Troutdale as me and Matt (the son) take turns playing songs. Everything from Bob Dylan to the Rolling Stones to more modern to traditional. Even Roy Orbison. As dusk settled in over the mountains I just looked around at the scene, heard the music, the harmony... truly magic in the mountains........
=And so I left my little Montana home away from home in Roanoke and peddled on in the mountains. John came out and did some video taping of me biking which was fun. I'll see if I can't upload something here soon. In Christiansburg (Day 8) I stayed with this womderful Warm Showers host family that had the cutest three year old boy. He saw my ukulele which immediately made us friends, so we played a little music, went to the farmers market, and then settled in for the night to watch PeeWee's Playhouse. :-) It made me miss my own little nephew so much!!
I won't go into all the detail (if you want more of that check out the daily Crazy Guy journal entries) but I will tell you these past days have been pretty tough on my quads. The constant up and down is really starting to get to them. And there have been some really killer little climbs. They haven't been long per se, just short and STEEP. Fortunately I was able to spend a couple days riding with another coast to coaster, Devin who is biking to San Francisco. He'll follow this trail till Pueblo, CO and then continue west when I veer north.
It was so nice to get to bike with Devin for a couple of days, each of us encouraging each other up the hills and sharing in the fatigue and struggle it took to get up some of them. We also managed to discover what was my first two gems of eating places! In Draper, VA we just stopped into this place to fill our waterbottles and when we opened the door it was like we were greeted by this magical wonderland of a mercantile/restaurant/music venue. Cracker Barrell dreams of being this but will never even get close. There was also a sketch of Wayne Henderson!
The next day we went in to grab some breakfast in Wytheville and turned out we ate at this amazing little diner that was in the building where First Lady Edith Bolling Wilson was born! I love these quirky places... SO much better than the typical chain restaurants found on box store streets around the country.
AND NOW... I am here in Damascus, VA at the crossroads of biker/hiker haven. I had a great descent from Troutdale to get here, just coming in at the tail end of Trail Days, a festival that attracts past, present, (future?) Appalachian trail hikers. It's been amazing these past couple of days getting to be in a bit of hiker land. Experiencing their stories, the trail names (there's a woman hiking the whole thing right now that everyone seems to know of they call the Bionic Woman. she is hiking with a prosthetic leg!), the comraderie and community they have. Right now I'm staying at a hiker/biker hostel called "The Place." I'm the only biker here, but it's filled with all these thru hikers, going through their gear, getting their resupply packages ready to send out to their next pick up place. It's all just another sub-culture like mine, out here doing our thing while the rest of the world goes on around us and it's pretty awesome to see. I'm hearing the stories from the veteren's that completed the hike. The mental and physical challenges they had and how they kept going and it gives me the encouragement to complete my own journey.
Hey! I also finished my first map! One down - eleven to go!!! In a couple of days I will be through Virginia.
Day 9: Christiansburg, VA to Wytheville, VA
Day 10: Wytheville, VA to Troutdale, VA
Day 11: Troutdale, VA to Damascus, VA
Ear Worms:
Heart - "Alone"
"Shake Your Groove Thing" (who did this?)
The Eagles - "Take it To The Limit
Lucinda Williams - "Lost It"
The legend herself, Pat Summitt, always giving me the look to push me through these mountains
An ode to quads....
Oh quads
We have bonded you and I
In a somewhat uneasy truce
You resign yourself to the climbs but always protest a little
And then those downhills - how I know they tease you
But believe me, it hurts me just as bad as it hurts you
when we have to go back up again, and again and again....
Moment: Sitting up in the misty mountains, outside a hiker/biker bunkhouse listening to the rain patter on the tin roof, strumming on my ukulele. It's a warm rain and there's the smell of woodsmoke in the distance. I breathe in the fresh, crisp air. The rain passes and up pulls the van. Steve, the bunkhouse houseparent and two Appalachian Trail thru hikers jump out. A father/son duo hiking the whole trail. We sit out on the porch and chat and then..music. The miles upon miles of lugging this little uke all paid off that evening in Troutdale as me and Matt (the son) take turns playing songs. Everything from Bob Dylan to the Rolling Stones to more modern to traditional. Even Roy Orbison. As dusk settled in over the mountains I just looked around at the scene, heard the music, the harmony... truly magic in the mountains........
magical evening: Steve and Matt (father/son) Appalachian Trail hikers and I playing music into the night
My amazing Warm Showers hosts in Christiansburg
I won't go into all the detail (if you want more of that check out the daily Crazy Guy journal entries) but I will tell you these past days have been pretty tough on my quads. The constant up and down is really starting to get to them. And there have been some really killer little climbs. They haven't been long per se, just short and STEEP. Fortunately I was able to spend a couple days riding with another coast to coaster, Devin who is biking to San Francisco. He'll follow this trail till Pueblo, CO and then continue west when I veer north.It was so nice to get to bike with Devin for a couple of days, each of us encouraging each other up the hills and sharing in the fatigue and struggle it took to get up some of them. We also managed to discover what was my first two gems of eating places! In Draper, VA we just stopped into this place to fill our waterbottles and when we opened the door it was like we were greeted by this magical wonderland of a mercantile/restaurant/music venue. Cracker Barrell dreams of being this but will never even get close. There was also a sketch of Wayne Henderson!
The next day we went in to grab some breakfast in Wytheville and turned out we ate at this amazing little diner that was in the building where First Lady Edith Bolling Wilson was born! I love these quirky places... SO much better than the typical chain restaurants found on box store streets around the country.
Hey! I also finished my first map! One down - eleven to go!!! In a couple of days I will be through Virginia.
The magical hiker/biker bunkhouse in Troutville
One map down!!
on the road..
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