Date: 2003-06-16
From: Va 130, James River

To: Glasgow, Virginia
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

As we sit in our motel room, looking out as the heavens dump two more inches of rain on the rapidly saturating land, what to make of Glasgow, Virginia. It sits in a vast expanse of bottom land between the Blue Ridge Mountains to the east, and the Alleghenies to the west. US501 runs straight as a die through the town until, as you look east, it veers left to accommodate a staggered line of steep, forested foothills that seem to hang over Glasgow. It's quite dramatic and very reminiscent of the fictional town of Twin Peaks. There are about 1,100 people living here, much the same as when it was incorporated in the 1890s. Around the mid 1800s there were expectations that it would become a major transportation hub as the canal and railroad sysems were being developed to link the east with the Ohio valley. As everywhere else, the canal venture eventually lost out, but still today the Norfolk Southern and CSX(the old Richmond and Allegheny line) converge and switch freight between their lines here. The main employer here, though, appears to to be a carpet-making plant, a subsidiary of Burlington Industries.  Most of the things of interest to hikers are clustered round the Blue Ridge road (US501) - motel, restaurant, grocery, launderette and Post Office. The library is a short ten minute stroll down Rockbridge Avenue. The motel is the only accommodation in town, and they price accordingly. $65 a night is exorbitant for what they provide, but when you arrive hungry, tired and wet, it's raining hard, and the nearest alternative is in Lynchburg with no easy means of getting there... well, you won't be surprised to hear that the customer gulps and pays up.The rain continues to fall, and a visit to the Library informs you that this is a flood plain for the James and Maury Rivers which join only a mile to the south. Floods destroyed the canal system near here, and Glasgow has had major floods in each of the last four decades. it must take a certain stoicism to put things together again until the next time.Or a sense of humour. Which may explain what catches your eye as you enter Glasgow. By the sign for the motel/restaurant stands a life-size stegosaurus. A local resident thought it would add a little colour to the place. Somehow the idea caught on. Across and a little way down the road, a large brontosaurus stands grazing on a well-manicured area of grass. The first time I went to the Grocery Express, I couldn't find the front door because a triceratops with large horns blocked the way. A visit to the library takes you past the Blue Ridge Tea Room, probably the oldest surviving building in Glasgow. It's a three-storey brick building, no longer a tea room, a fire at some point burned out the upper two floors, though the ground floor is still occupied by an auto repair business. Out of one of the blackened upper floor windows, with a skewed, broken window frame, sticks the head of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. It's just perfect, totally realistic (I know, I see the flaw with this adjective!). I may have passed three times before I noticed that a child's sneaker was hanging by its laces from one of the lower teeth. Oddly, this doesn't reduce the effect. In fact, it's even better.