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Time Traveling Last winter Dawn and I were driving down Route 29 to do a walk somewhere in the Lynchburg area when I saw a sign that made me stand on the brakes. "Oh," I said, "we have got to go check that out." The sign had announced the presence of the Walton's Mountain Museum and the image that had popped into my head was one of a happy, laughing family watching 60's era sitcoms, my folks lounging on the couch while my sisters and I sprawled on the shag carpet as close as we could get to bureau-sized, floor-unit television before being scolded back to a reasonable distance. I'd grown up watching silly shows like I Love Lucy and I Dream of Genie, action-packed romps like The A-Team and Mission Impossible, and heartwarming dramas like The Waltons. And now I had a chance to visit where one of those shows had been filmed. Or so I thought. Unfortunately, the museum had been closed for winter, so our little diversion didn't quite pan out. But the idea had been planted and now it was in full bloom. And so, now that the weather was warm once again, Dawn and I found ourselves walking through the museum's doors and taking a step back in time.
Apparently, I was the only one who thought that was hilarious. At least I was the only one laughing. The woman at the desk gave me a sour-milk face and said, "Hmm." I could see the wheels turning in her head. She pegged us for trouble. How right she was. Dawn spun the log around and noted that today's visitors included fans coming from as far away as Scotland. Right behind us was a happy middle-aged couple whose excitement couldn't be contained. "We just drove five hours to get here!" the husband announced, clearly intoning his view that he was about to step on holy ground. Most of the visitors, we soon learned, were huge fans of the show and quite knowledgeable. It had been many years since either Dawn or I had seen an episode of The Waltons, so we were sketchy on the details. The woman at the front desk beamed with pride as she interjected the name of the show's creator into every other sentence she spoke, but it slipped right out of our pea brains as we scanned the photos of Schuyler High School graduates from that era. Had we been the least bit perceptive, we might have noticed the brass plaque on his graduating class announcing his name. But, no, we had to ask the curator. Or, I should say, Dawn had to. I was too embarrassed to ask and convinced her to do it. Good call on my part. "I can't quite remember, who was the main person supposed to be?" The curator looked aghast. His tone was that reserved for speaking to either a misbehaving three-year-old or an idiot. "John Boy?" "No," Dawn said, "I mean the author." "Hamner," he replied, his voice just as icy as before. "Right, that's it." Then, after a pause. "And what was his first name?" He rolled his eyes. "Earl," he said with a huff. "Earl Hamner." Earl Hamner, it turned out, was screenwriter of a score of family movies, including Heidi and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And the Waltons was essentially an homage to his childhood home of Schuyler, with Walton's Mountain being a fictionalized duplicate of Schuyler Mountain. We learned about all this while sitting in on a 30-minute film whose bleached colors went from orange to green to yellow to purple, turning those portrayed into psychedelic Andy Warhol portraits. The prickly curator was present, asking questions about tiny details from the show that the crowd answered with relish. When he asked if anyone had any questions of their own, I briefly thought of goading him with questions like "Which room did Mary Ingalls sleep in?" and "Were Opie and Andy really related?" but Dawn somehow kept me in check. (NOTE: For anyone who grew up in a different TV era or simply doesn't recall, Mary Ingalls was the main character from another TV show called Little House on the Prairie and Opie and Andy were from The Andy Griffith Show, which took place in Mayberry. Had I actually asked those questions, I think the curator's head would have exploded.)
When we arrived at dusk, small children were cavorting on the grass in front of the giant screen and teens were gathered in small circles either chatting or playing hacky sack. At the concession stand, we loaded down with hot dogs and nachos and candy. I was stunned to see rows of cigarettes for sale next to the ice cream, but, hey, this was the South and this was outdoors.
But I didn't reflect on this too much. I had candy to eat and a movie to watch. And Buzz Lightyear was about to save the day! A Milestone Moment Other than Dawn needing to catch up on some sleep, there had been a second reason I walked alone yesterday. We were both closing in on a couple of milestone moments, and by knocking off 7 miles on my own we'd be able to reach them at the same moment today. Sam, the proprietor of The Village Inn, the kitschy and inexpensive motel where we were staying, agreed to drive us out to Faber and drop us off on the side of the road. As we began the 12.2-mile hike back through Woods Mill to Lovingston, I was feeling particularly giddy. The distance we were logging today would put Dawn's total "official" mileage at 300 miles and would put mine at 1,000 miles. Every now and then I'd start bellowing the refrain from The Proclaimer's I'm Gonna Be: "But I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more just to be the man who walked 1,000 miles to fall down at your door". Whenever we'd have to climb up some hill, I'd sing the theme song from The Jeffersons: "Well, we're moving on up..." And so it went for five hours, with me belting out songs and Dawn doing her best to ignore me. I did get her to join in a few times and once, while we paused for a water break, I convinced her to dance a jig on the roadside with me, earning us an appreciative honk from a passing trucker. I'd brought along what I considered to be the perfect "walking food": a bag of baby carrots. We passed the bag back and forth and, still filled with a spazzy happiness, tried to stuff as many of them into my pie hole as possible. I leaned close to Dawn's ear and mumbled, "Ah fnnk ah but awf mo an ah an ew." Which, translated, means: "I think I bit off more than I can chew."
"Someone's going to think you're mental and stop their car to shoot you," Dawn said. "Put me out of my misery, huh?" "Well, mine at least." But by the time we got into our final mile, my giddiness had infected Dawn as well. We paused in The Village Inn's parking lot, took a couple of pictures, and I once more broke into song. This time, Dawn joined me as we both sung the Proclaimer's refrain at the top of our lungs and danced a little jig. "Now go take a shower," she said. "You stink." Sure I stank. 1,000 miles will do that to you. A Day at the Races  Bill's horse, #6, far left, avoids dirt clumps flung in the face by hanging way, way back There's nothing quite like a day at the races: flocks of young women sporting spring dresses and flamboyant hats, the red-jacketed bugler blowing "Call to Post," and sleek thoroughbreds racing so fast around the track that their tails fly out straight behind them. It's a day filled with beauty, grandeur, and class. Or, at least it was until Dawn and I showed up. Although Colonial Downs was built in New Kent 13 years ago, neither Dawn nor I had ever visited the racetrack. Today, however, we couldn't pass up their July 4th offerings: discounted entry fees, a free outdoor concert, and a fireworks show to cap off the evening. In addition to the well-dressed and well-heeled, herds of casual folk milled about the lower "general admission" level in shorts and tees munching on hot dogs or sloshing beer onto their neighbors. These were my people. Even so, I was surprised at how many brought their children. Well, I thought, there's not much else to do in New Kent. Plus, it's never too early to get your kid started drinking, smoking, and gambling! After watching the first race, I joined the throng of anxious men at the ticket cages and read through the race program. I understood the basics of wagering�"win" for first place, "place" to finish in the top two, or "show" to finish in the top three�but didn't quite grasp the more complicated strategies�exactas, trifectas, triples lutzes, deuces wild, one-eyed-Jacks, and so on. I also knew nothing about the handicapping and merely went with how I felt about the horse's name. "Lacy's Tune sounds good," I told the cashier, "$5 to win." My ticket spit out, the cashier wished me luck, and we strolled down to trackside so we could get a good view of the finish line. The tune Lacy wound up singing was "Too bad I'm not a faster horse." But there were eight more races that evening. Plenty of time to give them more of my money. In the next race, I bet that Kissinacop would place, and�ta da!�my horse actually came in second. I went to the window with my $5 ticket and received $8.50 in return. $3.50 in winnings; if, that is, you don't count the $10 I lost on the first race or the the other $15 I spread out on the next three races. Those were just charitable donations. But the third race was for real. After the sixth race, I stopped donating and Dawn and I merely placed pinky bets with each other. Then we hovered around near the railing and rooted for whichever horse was leading, then cheering as if we'd just won a mint. For some reason, we seemed to be having the most fun out there. After the tenth and final race, we sprawled out on the pavement oval just outside the grass track and waited for the fireworks show to begin. Many people had brought lawn chairs and in front of us a young mother had spread out a blanket for her and her 5-year-old daughter. If we ever came again, we'd be more prepared. Finally several rockets streaked through the night sky trailing tails of sparks and far overhead the barrage burst into multicolored balls with thunderous explosions. On the blanket, the tiny girl hid behind her mama's leg and shrieked until disgruntled mama finally scooped her up and left, mumbling something along the lines of "Last time I ever do this again." While that sentiment might have been echoed by all those who shredded their tickets and littered the decks and grass with their confetti, I, for one, was more than satisfied with my evening at the races. The few bucks I handed over to the cashiers was just the charge for an evening out on the town. At least, that's the tune I'm singing. See? I did learn something from Lacy after all! Records Were Made to be Broken...Naked! Whoever said the human body was beautiful never visited a nudist colony. He probably made the comment after watching an episode of Las Vegas or flipping through the glossy pages of any pop culture magazine. But even those hard bodies are air-brushed before anyone gets to take a look at them. At most nudist colonies, however, the median age approaches that of a geriatric ward and no matter how hard you pray there's no air-brushing to be found. I'd known all this before my first visit to White Tail Resort, a year-round nudist colony located halfway between Virginia Beach and Richmond, because one of Dawn's former boyfriends had tagged along as a photographer's "helper" to take a group photo of the nudists. The guy had expected a scene fit for a centerfold section of Playboy but the scene had been more along the lines of Scared Straight! Not only was every fold, wrinkle, and bulge on display, one of the guys even had a colostomy bag strapped to his waist. Shudder! I'd even experienced all this myself�minus the colostomy bag�when I visited White Tail back on May 8. I knew firsthand that the intrigue of the place had nothing to do with the sights. Dawn had come with me and said that it would be her one and only visit. Under most circumstances, I would have agreed, but the clever nudists knew how to entice me back: with an opportunity to set a world record and be written up in the Guinness Book for the most people skinny-dipping at the same time.
So, once more, I returned to White Tail and sauntered around nude with a few hundred strangers. It was very difficult at first. You can't help but feel that everyone is watching your every move. But that soon dissipates and you realize you're just one more slab of flesh in a sea of beef. I threw a towel on a beach chair and settled in by the pool to wait for the designated time, all the while wishing I had some booze to numb my senses. All around me, naked bodies flapped, and flopped, and waddled about begging me to stare. Just like one might see images appear in the clouds overhead, my mind created patterns in the tracks of cellulite lining butts and backs of legs. One of the men had obviously lost a great deal of weight and his skin suit appeared to be made of Jell-O. The biggest lesson I learned was this: naked men should not wander about any faster than a slow stroll. Without�um, how to put this delicately?�an appropriate suitcase for the accompanying baggage, the contents, when stirred to motion, jounce about like a helicopter made of rubber bands. Disconcerting, to say the least. Honestly, how can there be no booze here? A DJ played music as the hour approached and a group of women started line-dancing near the pool's edge to the Cupid Shuffle. As the hour approached, everyone made their way into the pool and a photographer and a helper�not Dawn's friend; he'd learned his lesson�went up onto the roof of the club house with a ladder then climbed atop that to take a panoramic photo of the group. The DJ counted down and everyone hooted, hollered, and raised hands. Afterwards, we formed a line and all stepped out of the shallow end at the same spot. An official used a hand-held counter to keep track of us, clicking it as each of us passed him by. I hung around while the last skinny-dippers exited the pool and got the official tally: there'd been 258 of us that day. We wouldn't know for a few weeks whether or not we'd beaten last year's record of 13,678 because we had to wait for the American Association of Nude Recreation to gather results from all over North America, but we felt confident. I went to the little shop adjacent to the main office and waited for a color printout of the photo. As Dawn had proclaimed before, I didn't expect to ever come back again...but I wanted proof that I'd been here! While waiting, I bought a snack, a drink, and a t-shirt that read "I'm naked beneath these clothes." I was shocked at how expensive everything was. It was just like a store in an airport concourse where your only options are to capitulate or go without. Needless to say, I capitulated. I wanted something to hold in my hand while I waited�well, something other than my, um, luggage. The photo printed out and I received the first copy. I was easy to find, not just because I knew my position in the pool but because I stood out in the sea of brown flesh. Clothed, I appear to be quite tanned, my arms and lower legs browned from months of walking. But get past the lines formed by my t-shirt and shorts and my torso is lily white. So, there you have it. Once more I committed a crime against humanity by subjecting others to the sight of my naked body. But, I promise you, this will be the last time. For this year, at least. Next year when another group tries to knock me out of the Guinness Book, I might have to man up and "man out" one more time. And this time I'll bring some booze! NOTE: The coordinated skinny-dip did indeed set a world record, as individuals throughout North America shed their bathing suits and dipped in pools at the same time. Once the count was tallied, it was revealed there had been 14,110 of us. Judging by my size and that of my nude compatriots, we should have been credited with a lot more! Ticked Off Today was all about sewing up loose ends, or at least that's how it began. You see, last week when Dawn and I went to the race track, we didn't hike there as I'd originally planned due to Dawn's sore ribs (see June 25-26 for an explanation). So this morning I woke up early and walked the 7 miles myself, connecting Colonial Downs with my earlier route through New Kent. The walk itself was fairly uneventful. It was a nice, cool morning, perfect walking weather. There wasn't much of a shoulder, but the traffic was sparse and I only had to move over and tramp through the high grass due to oncoming cars a couple of times. Even so, that was enough for three ticks to plunge their hypostomes (feeding tubes) into my legs. I hate them. I hate them almost as much as being forced to watch a Steven Seagal movie.
"It could just be a drop of sweat," I said. "Sweat doesn't drip upwards," she replied. Totally creeped out, we scooted to the bathroom and I pulled the tick off her back and tried to squash it on the floor. I stepped on it first, to no avail. Then I used my pen cap, but it started to scurry away after I had pressed it flat. I used something harder, my house key, and still it kept wiggling and wriggling. But I kept at it until it finally popped. Then I gave Dawn a once-over to ensure no more ticks were dining on her blood. When the two of us exited the bathroom together we caused a minor stir. A man at a nearby table elbowed his buddies and they all started chuckling and giving me the knowing wink. I winked back and gave them the thumbs up. Why rain on their parade? They are not the enemy; ticks are! Tick bites are a serious matter, deadly serious in some cases. Noted novelist Amy Tan got Lyme disease from a tick bite in 1999 and now has late-stage neuroborreliosis. A few years ago, the starting quarterback for Florida State University, Wyatt Sexton, exhibited psychotic behavior after a tick bite, running down his street in his underwear, hiding from the cops in the bushes, and proclaiming himself to be God. Now, I know what you might be thinking: he could have already been psychotic; I mean, he was, after all, a student at FSU (rim shot). But the point is still valid. Ticks are nasty, resilient little buggers that deserve to be squashed at every encounter. In the war against ticks, I recently discovered that the enemy had embedded one of their reporters in Ball City. And, as scary and personal as that can be for a man, that wasn't my worst encounter with the enemy. My worst encounter was with the Phantom Tick. Here's what happened: back on the first day of summer, I woke at 3:30 a.m. and felt a tickling on my back. Remembering Dawn's recent experience, I freaked out and ran to the bathroom. But no matter how much I turned and squirmed, I couldn't get a good view. The itching sensation was at the center of my back. I tried to reach behind my back, hugging myself and grunting like a bear in an invisible straightjacket. Not a pretty sight, I agree, but it got even worse. When I finally twisted my elbow far enough and worked my hand near my spine, I finally felt it. The vermin was dug in good and tight. I got a good grip on it, pinching hard with my thumb and forefinger, and pulled with all my might. The end result, as you can probably guess, was that I ripped off a skin flap from my back and wound up with a bleeding hole. Somewhere Steven Seagal is smiling. Facing Our Fears Although Dawn and I visited Walton's Mountain Museum a couple of weeks ago, we hadn't walked there from another spot on my walking route. So, today we went back up to the museum in Schuyler and dropped my car off in the parking lot. This was backwoods country, so there was no chance of hailing a taxi (or even calling one to pick us up), so Dawn did what she does best: she walked up to strangers and asked for help. The first couple of guys she asked for a ride were not able to help us out because they were "on the job" and hopping in their cars to head off in the other direction. In other words, they'd been shirking and now that they'd been caught figured they best get back to work. Regardless, Dawn got lucky on try number 3 when she asked a middle-aged couple if they could give us a ride 7 miles down the road. They seemed confused by our request at first, but Dawn explained what we were doing and the man finally shrugged his shoulders and said, "Sure, but you'll have to push them bags over some. We were just on the way to recycling." Dawn didn't feel lucky once we'd gotten into the car. The black plastic trash bags pressing against her were not recycling. Unless, that is, they were on their way to a compost heap. I should pause here to tell you that Dawn's sense of smell is quite acute and she has what I would classify as a phobia of rotten smells. One time, she called me over to her house to cart her trash can out to the curb because it had chicken in it that had gone bad and she couldn't come within ten feet of it. The bags in the stinky couple's car weren't that bad, but they were far from pleasant. It was all Dawn could do to keep her lunch down. Although, if she were going to lose it, this would've been the place to do it. The kindly Stinkertons dumped us off at our starting point and Dawn sucked in fresh air. "You know, I wasn't leaning against you to get closer," she said. "It smelled like they had a dead body stuffed in one of those bags." "There, there," I said, patting her on the back and using the same voice I use when complimenting her dogs. "You were a brave girl. Who�s a brave girl? You were! Yes you were." Once Dawn had regained her composure and I recovered from the elbow she'd buried in my gut, we started marching down the road. The day was hot with soupy thick humidity, and we had to stop several times to drink water. We plodded down the road and there, off on the shoulder, Dawn found a wallet. I promised Dawn I would split the dough with her if she just kept it to herself, but, no, Miss Goody Two Shoes said we had to find the rightful owner. Easier said than done. The wallet contained a UVA student ID, an out-of-state driver's license, credit cards, and various business cards and assorted wallet junk. Later that day, we made a couple of calls to some of the people whose cards were in the wallet and over the course of the next couple of weeks I did Internet searches, sent out emails, and made more calls. Finally, I heard from the young man and shipped his wallet off to him. But, at that moment on the side of the road, we had no idea he was a college student who had just graduated and flown back home to Oklahoma. When we saw a gaggle of kids horsing around on the side of the road I called out, "Any of you named Milo?" To which they all shook their heads, looked at us suspiciously, then whispered amongst themselves and started laughing. We seem to get that a lot. About six miles into our walk, we heard a loud Splash! on the side of Schuyler Road. We weren't next to any houses, so it wasn't coming from a backyard pool. The noise had come from the woods. I turned to Dawn and said, "We've simply got to check that out." We followed a dirt path just a short ways off the road and saw a giant quarry that was filled with water. A couple of college kids had been playing around in it, and one of them (Brian) was now standing on the edge with a camera preparing to film the other (Michael) leaping off a cliff face into the quarry. I introduced Dawn and myself and told them about our little walking adventure. When I mentioned the blog, he said, "Cool, I love to read." That is so refreshing to hear, especially in today's increasingly dumbed-down world. "That's great," Michael added. "I love to share this place with people." Then he did a flip off the 30-foot cliff face, splashed into the water, and swam over to us.
"Real deep. You can't touch the bottom. One of my friends jumped in once and forgot he had his wallet and keys on him. He still hasn't found them." "His name wouldn't be Milo, would it?" "No." I looked up at the cliff then turned to Dawn with my eyebrows raised. "You game?" "Can't," she said. "The garment." Dawn has lymphedema and has to wear a specialized compression garment on her legs to prevent them from swelling up until she has elephantitis. It's amazing she can do half the things she does, but she has to draw the line somewhere and on the other side of that line is getting wet, which would ruin her garment. "Well, I'm going," I said. I stripped down to my shorts and handed Dawn my camera so she could film it. Then I followed Michael up the path circling around to the cliff. There were two jump-off points. The one from which he'd flipped had been the lower of the two; the second one was another 5 or 6 feet higher. That was where we headed. Litter was scattered around the promontory and Michael waved a hand at it and said, "When you write about this, tell people not to litter. I hate when I go up top and see all that trash there." So, I pause here to give the stink eye to any of you people out there too lazy to carry your trash to a can. And you know who you are. Stop yer darn littering, or I'll send Dawn after you and she�ll bury her elbow in your gut! Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, I was perched atop a 35-foot drop off about to jump into the water. Thirty-four feet, the Army has discovered, is the height at which an individual attains the highest amount of fear of height. Any higher, and the fear doesn't increase; it just stays the same. That is why they build paratrooper jump towers 34-feet tall. If an airborne trainee will jump from that height, he shouldn't hesitate to jump from an aircraft flying much higher. In my Army career, I'd jumped many-a-time from the jump towers and from aircraft, so the hop from the quarry's edge hadn't been a real problem for me...or so I thought. I guess my form wasn't the best in the world when I jumped (okay, I looked like a bear on crack falling out of a tree), and the next day I discovered my right arm had bruises all along its underside. Oops. Michael had been right. I came nowhere near the bottom. And, better yet, the water was nice and cold, perfect medicine for a hot and steamy day. When I swam back to the edge, I told Dawn that I wanted to go back and try diving from the lower stoop. Michael climbed up with me again and we readied ourselves for the next plunge. And here, I must pause again to reflect back on a time long, long ago (but not in a galaxy far, far away). When I was an elementary school kid, I would go to the community pool and follow all the bigger kids up the high dive. The big kids would all dive off or do other impressive things and I would always tell myself, This time I'm going to dive. But each time I'd chicken out at the last moment and jump off feet first. That is the image I had in my head as I approached the edge and eyeballed the water below. Diving head first into water is not the same thing as jumping, and I have to admit I had some butterflies. I was that second-grade kid once more. But this time I didn't chicken out. My dive wasn't pretty, but when I leapt from the edge and plunged into the deep, I was buoyed by more than water. The guilty weight of a distant memory had lost its grip on me and had sunk to the bottom of that pool, coming to rest beside a wallet and keys. I now feel compelled to face and conquer my next greatest fear: the fear of ogling women. Oh, wait, that's not a fear. That's a compulsion. A dirty, rotten compulsion. And I don't plan on ending that one anytime soon! Four-Star Digs for a Two-Star Git I knew today would be a scorcher�100 degrees without the heat index�but it had been too long since I logged any miles and I didn't want to miss another opportunity. So, I woke at 2 a.m., drove up to Faber, and was walking on the road by by 6:30. There was a 6-mile leg I had to finish off to connect Scottsville and Schuyler Mountain with my long trek down Route 29. Unfortunately, this leg was out in the middle of nowhere and I couldn't get a taxi to drop me off at my starting point. That meant doubling the mileage with a 12-mile out-and-back loop, but only 6 miles of it counting toward my official mileage. Harrumph. Instead of parking my car at one end of the loop, I pulled off the road near the halfway point. There might not have been any convenience stores along the route, but I would still be able to stop for some ice cold refreshment during my walk. As the saying goes: Work smarter, not harder. Mother Nature was my ally today. The country road I walked was lined with tall trees on both sides of the road and I was swaddled in shade for most of my walk. Also, with my early start, I was able to finish up before the temps cranked up to blast-furnace levels. All in all, it was a quiet, comfortable, and uneventful walk. Feeling good about the decisions I'd made today, I decided to treat myself that night. Instead of staying at my usual choice for a nightly accommodation�i.e., a fleabag�I decided to pamper myself with four-star luxury. I drove to downtown Charlottesville and pulled into the lot of the Charlottesville Omni, a seven-story, glass-shaped pie wedge towering over one end of downtown's brick-lined Pedestrian Mall. This evening I would join the ranks of the aristocracy. First, though, I had to remove my shirt and undershirt from the redneck clothes drier. I'd pinched the sweaty garments in the seals of my rear windows and they'd flapped in the breeze during the drive up. Funky clothes stuffed in a bag, I was once again ready to get my nobility on. Stepping through the doors, I was greeted by the sight of marble floors, a grand piano, and deep leather chairs. That was what I'd expected; but beyond that, I was surprised by a fountain bubbling in the midst of a forest setting. A tree soared halfway up the length of the seven-story, smoked-glass atrium. The elevator also had glass walls so I was able to enjoy the view on the ride up. As soon as I entered my room on the 7th floor�the penthouse!�I started checking out all the amenities to compare them to what I was used to. A mountain of pillows was strewn atop a king-size bed, a couple of tissues were folded into an origami rose in the tissue dispenser's slot, and a pair of monogrammed fleece robes hung in the closet. I put one of them on and pranced about the room pretending I was Thurston Howell, III from Gilligan's Island. "No one can pull the wool over my eyes. Cashmere maybe, but wool, never!"
I just couldn't get into the spirit of things. Only one thing to do: order up some room service. I called down for a veggie wrap and a glass of juice and when the service wench brought it up I pointed at the coffee table and said, "Place it there, peasant, and begone with you!" Okay, so I didn't actually say that out loud, but I'm sure she knew what I was thinking by the smirk on my face. I scanned through the pay-per-view movie listings but wasn't in the mood for anything listed. Instead, I dug out some magazines and a book from my bag and read those until I was tired. Then I plopped into bed to rest up for tomorrow's walk. Lying there, the last thought I had before drifting off was that four-star luxury really is wasted on me. I could have showered, read, and slept just as comfortably in a two-star dive. And happier with an unlocked fridge and pizza delivery from down the road. Whatever will Lovie think of me? College Daze So the plan for today was that I would get together with my nephew Mike, a student at the University of Virginia, and we would each do a favor for the other today. I would leave my car at today's end point and he would drop me off at the starting point. Then, after my walk was completed, I would give him a lift back to Poquoson so he could spend a weekend at home with the folks. Warned by my sister that Mike would probably be bringing a load of laundry home with him, I packed my gear as tightly as possible. Even so I was worried that we might be a little cramped on the ride home. I called him last night to confirm times and he dropped the following on me: "I forgot to ask, is it okay if a friend comes along? Do you have space?" His planning-ahead trait comes from my side of the family. From the other side, he gets his rhythm. Mike is on the UVA Dance Team and it was one of his female teammates who was hoping to catch a ride down to Williamsburg with us. "Sure," I said. "As long as she doesn't mind the stink." We would be driving the 2-� hours home right after I'd walked 12-� miles. Even though I was planning to shower at Mike's place first, we'd still have to contend with the funkiness of my sweat-drenched clothes. And the second set of clothes from yesterday. And, if my sister was right, Mike's laundry. I hoped Mike's friend either had a lot of tolerance or at least something with which to plug her nose. "Also," Mike said, "did you know I'd moved to a new apartment?" No, I hadn't. That would have been awkward: me pounding on the door to a stranger's apartment at 8 a.m. on a Friday morning. Mike told me to meet him at the 7-Eleven next to his apartment building then told me the intersection where it was located. It was actually 2 blocks away (he gets his sense of direction from my side of the family as well), and I busted his chops about the snafu. He was groggy from being out last night until 4 this morning but took my ribbing with a smile. "Look," he said, pointing down the road, "you can see the intersection from here." Luckily, we would be using a GPS to navigate to our starting point.
The hike through North Garden and South Garden was one of the prettier ones I've done so far. Plenty of farms, livestock, lush green fields. A good deal of my walk paralleled a stream as well, and I paused to take numerous photos. As the day wore on though, I was attentive to the surrounding beauty and wholly focused on the bludgeoning heat. I'd brought along a gallon of water and an additional quart of Gatorade, but that hadn't been enough. I polished off the last of my liquid while I still had 3 or 4 miles to go and was feeling thirsty. A woman was lounging on the porch of one of the houses I was passing and I asked her if I could get some water from her. She filled one of my bottles with some of the iciest aqua ever. Man, did that ever hit the spot. Even so, by the time I made it to my car, I was feeling weak and beaten. The sun had done a number on me. When I leaned down to change my socks and shoes, I got a serious head rush and had to hold onto the side of the car for stability. Once the dizziness passed, I drove to the nearest convenience store and purchased two more quarts of Gatorade and two Power Bars. I'd regained equilibrium by the time I reached Mike's apartment, and after a shower I even felt human again. When I came out and slumped down into a chair, Mike brought over a plate and showed me the omelet bagel he'd just prepared. "What do you think?" he said with little bit of pride. "That's great," I said, "Is it for me?" His grin became a surprised O and his eyebrows arched. "Oh, I guess it can." I snapped up the plate and devoured the bagel, which was indeed delicious, and Mike went back into the kitchen to make another omelet. Mike is a brainy and kind-hearted kid. He's learned a lot at UVA, but some things they don't teach you in college. Some things, like protecting your food, you've got to learn in the school of hard knocks. Having been a student of that school for many years, I am always happy to share my knowledge. That's just the kind of kind uncle I am. |
The Waltons add a castmember
Hamming it up
A small fan dressed for the occasion
I think someone spiked my carrots
Michael paddling in Schuyler Quarry
Thurston and Lovie looking down their noses at everyone...especially you!
Bucolic North Garden