Date: 2016-07-12
From: Pearisburg, VA

To: Pearisburg, VA
Miles today: 0.0

I decided it was time to take a "zero day" and take care of my feet, but I was not going to do another night in that motel. I had run into Merlin in the grocery store last night and he told me about a new hostel where he and Gandolf were staying. After breakfast at Hardee's, I tried to find the hostel, walking a mile and a half or two miles, with no hostel in sight. I went to the other motel in town, asked to see a room, and decided this was a much better option. I couldn't get the room until later, but I was able to leave my pack. I went to Andrew Johnston House and Museum. It was closed, but the yard offered a nice place to sit in the shade and read my book on my iPhone. The heat was almost bearable in the shade of the large tree, but I noticed dark clouds rolling in over the mountains.It was close to lunch time so I checked the Internet for other eating options. I found Nagel's Downtown Grille a few blocks away. It had great reviews. It seemed like the perfect place to eat lunch and wait out the storm. I got there and discovered that it was closed down. As I stood reading the fabulous menu that I couldn't order from, there was a large clap of thunder and it started to rain, a torrential rain. The doorway to the former restaurant was on the corner of the two main streets in town and was tucked into the building to offer just enough space to get out of the rain. I huddled back against the door and watched the rain for 30 minutes, thinking how great it would be if I were inside the restaurant eating a barbecue sandwich while I watched the rain. Since Pearisburg is a mountain town, the street was at a fairly steep angle. It soon looked like a mountain stream and then a river as the rainwater ran down hill. Cars driving by threw a wall of water over the sidewalk towards the covered steps where I was standing. I had to press myself against the door to stay dry.The rain let up, so I decided to head back to the hotel and wait out the storm there. I had my trail umbrella, but I was hoping to keep my hiking shoes dry, or at least close to dry. The street was still a river if rainwater. Every time a car or truck came by I had to press myself against the buildings to avoid getting splashed. I had gone one block closer to getting hotel when it started to pour again. I found another doorway to huddle in. This time it was a closed bakery. The downtown blocks of Pearisburg had the potential of being a picturesque mountain town. When you stood on the Main Street and looked either direction, there was a mountain rising up at he end of the street. The street was lined on both sides with old brick buildings. On the corner across from the closed restaurant was the county courthouse with nice landscaped grounds and a large statue dedicated to their confederate war heroes. But most of the stores were closed. The local theater was converted to a gun store. And there was no place to eat. After another 30 minutes of waiting for the rain to stop, I decided to head towards the motel. I actually went a block past the motel to Dairy Queen and had lunch there. Then I went back to the hotel, set my sport shoes on the air conditioner (which was tricky because it was a unit hanging high on the wall) and soaked my feet for a while. There was a nice overhang with chairs outside each room, south sat outside my room, read my book, and watched the storm with a view of the shopping center across the street and the mountains in the background.Before supper time, the storm passed and the sun came out. I found a place at the edge of the parking lot to set my hiking shoes in the sun to dry, put on my camp shoes, and headed across the way to the Mexican Restaurant. They had a patio out back with a great mountain view. While it wasn't the down-home, country diner I was hoping for, it turned out to be a nice place to eat. It was a good thing I was sitting on the patio, because I could see the dark clouds rolling in again. I told my waiter, I needs to go across the street to my hotel and move my shoes in so they wouldn't get rained on and then I would return. I didn't want him to think I was running out on the bill. I came back, and finished my meal on the patio but under the roof of the building. I walked back to the hotel to put my camp shoes on the air conditioner to dry and soaked my feet again. I guess when you hike about 12 miles per day you think about your feet a lot, but I knew I was leaving Pearisburg and heading back out to the trail. In my day and a half in Pearisburg I had eaten at all four of the restaurants, and shuffled in the doorway of the closed downtown grille and bakery. It was definitely time to move on.