Date: 2014-06-13
From: US 522 Front Royal 

To: Front Royal
Miles today: 0.0

Friday-the-thirteenth has been a day of good luck for me. Lisa, the co-owner of Mountain Home Cabbin, cooked my breakfast of eggs, toast and yogurt spiked with fresh blueberries I brought from the grocer. Robyn, Kayleigh and Belch had blueberry pancakes. Technically, this is a bed and breakfast, so breakfast comes as part of the package. It was my good luck to have apple butter from the Apple Butter Capital of the world in my opinion.I first learned about this when my nephew Cliffy was in college and his girlfriend was from the Winchester, VA area. He went home with her one weekend and came back with a jar of homemade apple butter. That was the best I have ever had. Since then, I have tried recreating equally good apple butter with various recipes but never matched that taste. The apple butter on my toast this morning came from the Apple Butter making session by Shiloh Church of the Brethren at Kinderhook, Greene County, VA. They cooked it slowly the old fashioned way in copper kettles. It surpassed my expectations in taste.Robyn and Kayleigh, from Brighton, England, took me to Samuels Public Library as they were leaving town in their rental car on their way to McAfee Knob for a hike. They did quite well driving on the correct side of the road for America, so it was not so wild of an adventure, but an opportunity to visit a few more minutes before telling them good-bye.I needed to download a train ticket for DC in a few days. The librarian let me on a computer for two hours as a guest user. It took a while to get the PDF document to open, but I had the good luck to get it printed. Also, I wanted to do some research pursuing my thoughts on what I will be saying in my part of my son's wedding in July. I am looking at wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut and George Harrison. I was lucky to get my info printed and sent to my email, two minutes before my time expired.As I was leaving the library, I was thinking of going to a nearby used bookstore but it was raining so I stood under the portico to wait out the rain. Just then, a Ford hybrid car like the one the English ladies were driving, stopped in front of the library and the occupants waved at me. Much to my surprise, it turned out to be them and they offered to drive me back to the B and B. I had the information I needed and was tired anyway, so I accepted their offer and I wouldn't have to call Lisa to come back to town for me. What luck for me because they were supposed to be long gone but their GPS did not work correctly, but lucky for them they made it back to the hostel and got written directions.I needed a few more things from the grocery and Lisa was dropping Achilles off at the cinema but I didn't want to wait three hours to get picked back up. Lisa said "this is your lucky day because I need a few things from the store also so I will bring you back after I finish shopping."On the way back to the B and B we passed by a hiker standing by the road reading his guidebook as if he had just emerged from the woods and was trying find a hostel. I told Lisa that it is "Fitty Shrimp"-- you should pick him up. Which she did. He said later he was glad she stopped for him because this is "my best place to stay yet ."By nightfall there was a full house. Fitty Shrimp, Flat (new to me). Achilles, and Flower Child (a guy). (The Cabbin will sleep six if two are a couple for the double bed.)Just as the colors of the sunset were forming, Flower Child saw a bush shaking in the backyard and upon closer examination realized it was a bear eating some leaves. He called to the rest of us and we came out running with our cameras. It turned out to be a large bear who glanced at us a couple of times but basically ignored us and and continued his (or her?) foraging as it meandered back Into the woods on the opposite side of the driveway.I had said a few days a ago I was not going to stress over not seeing bears--that the trail would give me bear sightings if and when I needed them. If I count this one as a SNP bear, seeing three in the park is not bad. I was lucky to see this large one at a safe distance and get through the park with no bear encounters.If this hasn't been a nice day, I don't know what is.