Date: 2013-05-21
From: Returning from vacation

To: Daleville
Miles today: 0.0

Interfacing with the outside world sure gets complicated. Of course, I could have thought this all out better beforehand.Today began with missing my bus to get out of Charlottesville, so I had to take the afternoon bus. One of the local bus drivers said "Don't take Greyhound -- take the train." I could have gotten to Lynchburg by train, but Amtrak doesn't go to Roanoke. If I was going to wait around somewhere, Charlotteville, with its old downtown & the University of Virginia seems more interesting than Lynchburg with Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.ACTUALLY, I had spent the night at the airport. I was told that the terminal closed from midnight to 3:00 a.m. & that Chester, the night watchman would come around to throw me out. Everybody left & I got a little bit of sleep. Then around 1:00 a man showed up. I asked him if he was Chester, coming to throw me out. He said he was Chester & he had to lock the terminal, but I could stay in the space between the inner & outer doors. So I did. My sleep was interrupted every time I moved because the motion sensor would open the outer doors. After 3:00, he let me back in, & I slept a bit on a more comfortable seat. I should have got up a little earlier, tho, because I still had to walk about 3 miles in to Wal-Mart, from whence I could get a bus downtown to the Greyhound station. I just missed one bus ¢ the next one got me downtown just in time to see the Greyhound bus leaving. Both busses were on time, so I really couldn't complain, but the city bus could have got there sooner if the driver hadn't stopped several extra minutes at one shopping center to let a regular passenger go into a store & buy something.Anyway, I got to hang around the old downtown area. They have lots of tables & chairs out, but they go with a particular restaurant, so unless you want to keep buying food, you have the choice of walking, standing, or using one of the very few public benches, which were usually in the sun. But it's still a nice place to be. I also walked around UVa and took a tour of the Rotunda, Jefferson's design for a library & lecture rooms, almost finished at the time of his death. The whole building is round because he didn't like corners & felt that his octagonal place at Monticello was defective that way!I got the afternoon bus to Roanoke, but once I got there, I still had the problem of how to get back out to Daleville. I figured it would be easiest to go back to the same motel where I had left some of my stuff & wanted to leave more, while I hiked 3 more days back to Daleville. This time I figured for only $4.00 I could take the bus that also goes to Blacksburg out to a park-&-ride lot that would be only 9 miles (a straight shot on I-81) rather than the 13 or so to downtown. After I got to the lot, I called a shuttle driver, who advised me to see if I could hitch a ride from the lot. Plenty of cars there, but most of them were headed the other way. After 30-40 minutes, I finally found a man who would take me, a little past where he was really going, but he wanted to talk about the Trail. So that worked out. When I got to the motel, the first room they gave me was not made up yet; the second had just had the carpets cleaned, & all the movable furniture was up on the bed.I had sorting to do and calling shuttle drivers again.One put me in touch with Brenda from Pearisburg, thinking she might want to drive me the whole distance (for $70 or so). She & I both thought that wasn't very cost-effective, if I could get to Blacksburg for $4 on the bus, but she would pick me up in Blackburg & take me to the Trail. So I called the local shuttlers again to get back to the park-&-ride: one didn't want to get up that early; the other had a bunch of people to shuttle but would work me in around 7:30. I decided I'd see if I could hitch-hike to the park-&-ride earlier than that.