Walking the Trail of the Lonesome Pine Saturday, 16 Oct 2004 I left the motel in the dark after eating some leftover cold pizza for breakfast. Even so, I felt that I wanted to soak myself in Lysol after a night in that room. I walked a quarter mile down the road to a gas/convenience store for some coffee, a finish to my breakfast and water/snacks for the road. I was walking seriously by 7:15. And then it began to sprinkle...not what I could call rain, but enough to drag out the next-to-useless poncho... especially now because it was splitting down the front...I think a plastic garbage bag with a hole for my head to stick through would be better! Enough sprinkle to form small puddles after a while and allow passing vehicles to send up clouds of spray. The first break was spent in a farmer's driveway. As I left, a pickup slowed and stopped; the passenger rolled down his window: "You OK?" "Yes, I'm fine." Where you going?" "Virginia Beach." "OK. You need any money?" "No, no! I'm fine, really!" They drove off. The incident only reinforces my brother Lee's opinion that in my walking rig I look like a homeless person. The second break was at a Verizon building...one of those little brick facilities that you see here and there...contains switching equipment, I guess. This one had a gloriously dry entrance shelter. Back on the road for a few minutes and I realized the rain had stopped and over the next hour or so, the sun broke though the clouds, and a brisk wind came up and pretty soon most of the clouds were gone. At Hansonville, there is combination gas station/convenience store/cafe (fancifully termed a deli). I had a fried chicken, cole slaw, Texas fries platter. Overcooked and heavy on cooking oil. Have you ever seen that cartoon of roadside store with the sign, "EAT--GET GAS"? Shortly after crossing the Clinch River, I climbed what must be the steepest hill so far in the trek. In fact this whole day seemed to be up, up and up, followed by down, down and down. I think walking down hill is as worse or maybe worse than climbing. It is particularly hard on legs and knees as I am constantly braking to fight off what I guess is the force of gravity pulling me down the hill. Walking up the hill, I noticed a small stream to the left...flowing around boulders and rocks and dropping over 12 or 15-inch ledges. Very pretty and I bet it sounded nice too. I couldn't hear for the traffic noise to my right. All those people in those 60+ mph vehicles had no idea what they were missing just over the shoulder of the road. Road treasures for the day include a dime and two pennies, a pair of pliers, several small coils of small diameter aluminum wire, a 4-5 inch plastic doll with painted-on facial features and clothes, and two large plastic jacks (several miles apart). About 6:15 I checked into the motel. I expected a twin of the one from last night. In some ways it was so, but at least the owner/manager here tried. An immigrant from India, he was fighting off deterioration of the facility while introducing some amenities like microwaves in the rooms and morning coffee in the lobby. He hasn't been afraid to use some paint and the room showed evidence of having been cleaned! In fact, he came up to the room and checked to be sure everything was in place and working. Although, I suspect this may have been in part an inventory to assure nothing disappeared during the night or next morning. So ends a 24-mile day. Good night. Sunday, 17 Oct 2004 I have decided that today is a rest day or at least partially so. I walked across Abingdon to the intersection of US58/US11/I81. Here in Abingdon, I left Alternate US58 and the Trail of the Lonesome Pine and returned to just plain old US58. The walk through Abingdon retraced in reverse a piece of my US11 trek of three years ago. I passed the Barter Theatre where Donna and I attended a performance of Gypsy Saturday night a week ago on our way out to Cumberland Gap. Founded during the Depression, the theater was established to provide work for unemployed actors and to bring some "culture" to the mountains. The founder's idea was "Why should I stay in New York and starve when the folks down home in SW Virginia have plenty of food, but no theater? We could trade." Admission was 35 cents or the equivalent in victuals. The idea worked. Today Barter Theatre is owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Starving Artists restaurant is a great place to eat if you ever visit Abingdon which itself is a beautiful little town. With the 5 or 6 miles today and the 22 and 24 of the last two days, I figure that I walked over fifty miles in a little over fifty hours. My legs needed some rest and I needed to find a new poncho and some blister patches. And brunch and supper at Cracker Barrel did not hurt either. Tomorrow, I head for Damascus along US58 and the Virginia Creeper Trail. And yes, the weather folks are calling for showers!