Date: 2005-05-14
From:  Blue Ridge Parkway, Mile 51.7

To: US 60
Miles today: 10.5

Little Irish Creek, USFS 39 to   US 60    S 6.5miles Blue Ridge Parkway, Mile 51.7 to  Little Irish Creek, USFS 39  N 4.0     Saturday May fourteenth. Our 6th wedding anniversary. We spent last night back in Buena Vista at the Buena Vista Motel in room thirty eight. We have queen bed but spacey room, it¢s nice. We get up at 6:00am and are on the road at six fifty five, exactly the same time as yesterday morning. We took back roads down to leave the rental car at USFS 39, Peddlar Dam area. We drove back up to US 60 at long Mt wayside at a little picnic area and parked our car. And we're on the trail at be 8:40 am. And at 9:35 we were at this Brown Mt shelter. We ended up staying there twenty five minutes, just reading the shelter journal. Headed off, and it was really a nice trail that went down through this little valley, where freed slaves had started a community. The government built a dam here in the 1920s and bought out the whole community. We get to Leaf creek which is very beautiful. We came out at another gravel road, I forget what it is, USFS 38 maybe. By 10:50, we did 3.8 miles in 2 hrs 10 minutes. We got views thru the trees of the reservoir.  The trail never took us down near it. We went in and out of the different little hollows and there was a nice little stream over the boulders, and then you turn a corner. And the Rhododendrons were just unbelievable. Just Like being in Alice in Wonderland, as the Appalachian Trail book happened to say when I read it right there. And we kept going, we finally get a view of the dam and the overflow. And you get into the relocated area and they take you around and then down and across the new suspension bridge. And we are out at the car on Little Irish Creek, USFS 39 right after 12:00, doing 6.5 miles. Just before we got to the bridge here at the end, the other couple that we had talked to yesterday came by. Talked to them a short time.  This afternoon we drove back up to Blue Ridge Parkway mile 51.7 and we're trying to get ready to do another four mile hike in this section. And here comes a vehicle pulling into a parking lot. Yeah a Ford Expedition and didn't really think anything of it and then the guy gets out of the passenger side and here it was Razz. And I don't know if he was he was as surprised and we were or not. We had a nice talk and met his wife, and Boxy the dog was still with them. He told us about going back to Pearisburg and talking to the sheriff's department and nobody had filed for any missing dogs. They already decided that she¢s theirs and took her to the Vet and spent $300 dollars on shots and blood work, and everything. She¢s good to go. She's walking to Maine. But then she's going home, poor dog, to Phoenix, Arizona in that heat. It was just a real nice time talking to them. I was able to tell them where the trail crossing is down on USFS 39. And how to get there, and the easy way for his wife to get there. I think he hiked today, probably from Petite Gap to 501 at James River, and now tomorrow it sounds like he's going to try to do from James River across the Blue Ridge Parkway, that extra four miles, which makes almost 14 miles long. But that means his wife has to drive these back roads. The Rhododendron are just absolutely beautiful this afternoon. Certain parts of the trail are just unbelievable. Finally we left and said goodbye to them. We started that hike at 3:00pm and then we started doing these knobs, like Terry remembers me reading to him. And so there was more up than we ever thought. But finally after an hour, and about halfway, we hit the high point and then it was pretty well down from there. And then we met this guy and 2 gals coming up. Stopped and talked to them for a couple minutes and told him how we hiked the trail. They're out for a day hike also, but their hiking like 16 miles. They¢re hiking south, and they started at Harpers Ferry sometime this year. We never did find out where they're from. The one gal originally from Joliet, when we told her we were from Illinois. Finally got to the car at Little Irish Creek, USFS 39 at 5:05. And Now we're heading back to get the other car and then who knows what the night will bring on our anniversary. We are changing shoes in the car when it just really got dark. And then it started raining and we said, OK let's head for it. so we get on the Blue Ridge Parkway and the rain gets harder and harder and then it started to hail. and it seemed kind of dangerous so finally we found a place to pull off but, by then it kind of slowed up. so we said let's go on down, and I said I'm going to pull in the Buena Vista motel, just to see. Pulled in there, went in, and talked to the lady because the sign didn't say there was no vacancy, but she was on the phone with someone. She got off and she said, "I don't have anything, I just gave the last room away to the person on the phone". and I said, "oh where do you recommend we could go". I said something about Lexington, and she said no you won¢t find anything, they're all full, you won¢t find anything there. So I said, well we really just need something, a place to clean up. and she says, "What do you mean like a shower? Well, maybe I can help you." And she knew that one couple that had reservations wouldn't be there for an hour, so she went ahead and gave us some towels, a little bar soap and the keys to a room.  Go ahead and take a shower, and she wasn¢t going to charge us anything. I asked about cleanup afterwards. She said, you have to clean it up. She said to take your towels and wipe everything down and you know dry everything off. So that was fantastic, Terry and I each got cleaned up. And I also told her it was our anniversary and that we wanted to go into town. Find a nice place to eat. Anyhow, we got cleaned up, took care of that. I asked her about leaving one car there in the parking lot, she says yeah no problem. So we left the rental car and drove our car into Lexington, looking for possibly a motel. I knew all of them were going to be too expensive. we went to the Red Carpet inn and there was no vacancy. Then we found out that the Virginia Military Institute was there and it looked like they were having graduation. and Washington and Lee universities there. And it was also prom night it looked like. So we drove around we went to Stonewall Jackson's Memorial, we¢re not sure if this is his grave site. Then we found the Civil War trails and we drove down to the Maury River and read about a Civil War skirmish they had there. Where the Union Army came through and finally won, and they burned the Military Institute and some other things. Then we said let's find an Applebee's. Well we found one and turned out it wasn't too crowded. We had to wait about a half hour and had a nice meal. We had a perfect margarita at Applebee's. And we had a nice talk with our waiter, McKay who is actually from Houston but he's going to school at Virginia Southern University, it's here, in Buena Vista. I said let's just go back and pull in the parking lot there at the Buena Vista Motown and sleep there in the back of the car. NO, I did not say that to the waiter! So we headed back to Buena Vista and just before we got back into town there's something in the road and I swerved, but I still hit it. It was dead already, but it was a skunk. Oh the terrible smell. So anyhow we slept in the car and you could just smell the skunk. YEH, didn't help things any. I could smell it a long time. Anyhow, that was our evening.