Damascus Virginia that is.
10/28/09
I got going in the morning from Mt. Carmel church. I had expected to run into pastor Jim in the morning but he must have taken the day off or been busy with something else so I never got to meet him. Today was the road to Damascus. As you will be able to note from one of the photos. The road to Damascus was a nice road, most of it, and had very few cars beaming by me. I had a nice few of the mountain range and once I got into Damascus it was a little harder than I thought it would be to find the actual bike shop. There are rental bike shops in town since the creeper trail is so popular. I wonder why they named it that? If I wanted people to come checkout miy beautiful trail the last thing I would name it would be the creeper trail, but that’s what they called it. I found the shop as it was decked out with all kinds of phsycadelic colors. And I was able to take care of almost everything I needed to. I got a new computer being as the rain fried my last one. They had a handle bar bag with a clear map holder on top. I’d been looking for one of those for hundreds of miles, but just didn’t want it bad enough to order it. I got an additional bag that sat on my back rack. And most importantly, BIKE OIL. My chain has been squeaking for 350 miles and few of these towns have shops in them. Actually, most importantly I got my breaks taken care of. These mountains are hard on them and especially in the rain I miss the first bike that I had before ‘Make Shift’. Those disc brakes would have some in handy.
Before a left town I had a big bowl of taco salad and a blueberry shake which was stellar good.
I got going on the creeper trail which is kind of like the Sparta Elroy trail except a little rougher. Which slowed me down a few mph. It crossed the river many times and also crossed the Appalachian trail which was really cool because I have never seen the trail but I’ve heard a lot about it and will probably hike it someday.
So out on the Creeper trail I cam across a perfect camping spot. I was going to go about 6 more miles, but it was quiet here right on the bike trail with a rushing river next to it, so I couldn’t pass it up. It even had a fire pit. Now I probably should have sat down and wrote journals or did something productive but the eagle scout in me saw a fire ring. It had rained pretty hard 2 nights ago and rained a bit the prievious night so it was going to be a challenge. And I’m not quite sure if I’ve ever worked so hard to make a little fire but with a lot of effort, pine needles and trying really hard to find anything remotely dry I eventually got a nice little fire going which was nice to sit next to as my brain unwound from the day.
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