Date: 2007-11-17
From: Roanoke

To: Roanoke
Miles today: 0.0

mi. 0sleep house/beddest. Roanoke day 128 Well it didn't take long to convience us to take the day off. We both decided before we went to sleep. Steve offered to take us downtown and show us around the city. Can't let an opportunity like that pass by. Steve made a great breakfest for us. English muffins with eggs and bacon. Along with juice and coffee of course. After breakfest he dropped us off in downtown Roanoke. Roanoke is an interesting town. Small by big city standards. The actual town only has just over 90,000 people. The whole valley just under 250,000. A lot smaller than back home. The down town area has a great market area. He told us in the summer it is full of local growers. It still had a few with the upcoming holidays. I got a lot of my erronds done here. Stop one, new coffee. There is a small local chain called Millmountain coffee. Great little place. They had great hot apple cider. I picked up half a pound of coffee for the foodbag. Stop two, a new book. Seriously, The Oprah may love "The Road" but it is a depressing book. I need humor on the trail. Once again this place comes through. There is a small little bookstore here. I asked the woman working there for suggestion on a funny book. When I said I liked Douglas Adams, she said she had some good ideas. She told me later Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy is one of her favorite. For once a book store worker comes through. In a minute I had 5 or 6 books to choose from. I ended up with "Naked". A book by the author of running with siccors. She said it had the same witty humor. My kind of book. From there is was food and people watching. It was funny to see everyone rushing around with their lives. Or talking up a storm in teenage groups. Now a friend of mine and I always enjoy people watching. The only thing better is gettin pics of the strangest ones. Usually she is in the forground leaning to one side as I take a pic over her shoulder. This time I had to settle for my cell phone camera. I should have brought the digital. There was a guy, we saw him more than once, walking around carrying an Osprey hiking pack (looked pretty empty), wearing hiking shoes, and gaiters. Seriously gaiters in town. Along with jeans and city clothes. I had to get one of him. The other was a funny question from a daughter to her mom. Now this girl is 13 or 15. She must never leave town. One of the market vendors had piles of corn husks laying around. The girl asked her mom "Mom what's this?". Her mom was told her it was corn. She yells back it doesn't look like corn. !"Are you sure it's corn?". Then she keeps rattling of about it as she was walking away. That girl needs to get out of the city once in her life. From there is was back to there house and more food. Their 2 daughters and some of their kids came over for dinner. A full house of screaming kids. I didn't think about it, but I should have called my sister and tried to talk to her over it. Whenever I call all I can hear is her kids in the background. It would have been a good payback. But I didn't think about it until later. Once again I stay up way too late. They didn't end up leaving until after 8pm. Then we went to Kroger to resupply. After all of that was done and repackaged it was after 11. So of course I call my friend in OR and talk to him until almost 1am. That only happens in town. Usually I'm sleeping early on the trail.