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The Rapture In an attempt to knock rust off our walking muscles, Dawn and I planned to hike the Noland Trail today. But when I arrived at her house, it seemed I might have to do the walk on my own. She had been raptured! Well, not exactly. Let me explain: Harold Camping (a.k.a., the Nut Job) has been claiming that today was the day the world would end. All the believers are supposed to raptured (spirited up to Heaven) while all the sinners are left behind to suffer while the world tears itself apart. Supposedly, it�s even worse than sitting through a full episode of Jersey Shore. Anyway, the Nut Job convinced his followers to cash in their savings and use that money to get the word out about the Apocalypse. Last week, Dawn and I actually saw a Rapture Van driving down Jefferson Boulevard in Newport News. The van was making its way across country and all of its sides were painted over with warnings about the coming Rapture. That�s what led to Dawn�s little display on her front porch. And she wasn�t the only one to have some fun with this. All across the country, people posed various empty outfits on the ground, in chairs, and in cars as if they'd been raptured. Dawn hadn't forewarned me that she'd be doing this and I nearly fell over laughing when I saw laid out on her porch the paint-stained pink-and-blue outfit she wears when working around the yard. Going for the full effect, she included earrings, glasses, and bobby pins where her head should be and an empty can of beer clutched in a work glove.  
 What's left of Dawn is on the top left We had a few chuckles over Dawn�s display and then went out to the Noland Trail. In no time at all, our smiles were replaced by grimaces as the hilly, five-mile course kicked our butts. This was just the first step in our self-abuse. We also planned to meet at the gym in the early morning every day this week to get in some treadmill work. Just like last-minute cramming to prepare for a final exam you�ve ignored all semester, we were hoping these visits to the gym would prepare us for the road. This coming weekend, we would be walking out in the western part of the state again, and I had a gnawing suspicion that both of us would be feeling something similar to the sulfuric burn of end-of-the-world torment. Then again, maybe I shouldn�t believe everything I read on a van. Heat, Hills, & Humidity When I was at my best, my daily walking mileage was in the high teens or low twenties. But even when I was nowhere near my best back in November and December, before I hibernated for winter, I could still knock out ten miles-a-day in hilly terrain. It�s been a long time since Dawn and I hit the road for a difficult walk, so neither of us expected much from this return to the walk across the state. After driving out to Wytheville to pick up the route where we left it off before, we had a taxi drop us off six miles away from our ending point. If all went well, we planned to call the taxi again to drop us off farther down the road so we could get in a second walk. We should have looked up the number for the ambulance instead.
But traffic was not our concern; surviving the hot and humid day was. Sweat was rolling off of me in buckets. Knowing we were only going six miles, I decided not to tote my rucksack on this walk, figuring we wouldn't need the extra supplies and that I would be grateful not to be carrying the extra weight. While I was right about the latter part�especially with all the hills in this part of the state�I was dead wrong about the former. The two water bottles we were carrying were empty before we reached the halfway point and there weren't any stores on this stretch of road where we could refill. We finally came across a public building, but it was a church instead of a store. In fact, it was one of the smallest churches in the country. The door was unlocked so we entered to get out of the baking sun. The church might have been tiny in size, but it was tall in character. Inside, a handful of two-person pews faced a lectern, beside which leaned a large wooden cross. Behind the lectern, a five-foot tall stained glass window was centered on the back wall, and above that was a mantel on which was an ornamental carving of the word Believe. But what most caught our attention was the bulletin board mounted near the front entrance. On it were posted personal messages requesting prayers for everything from sick and departed friends and relatives to a notecard that read, "Thank God for noodles." When we finally left the sanctuary, we were smacked with that disorienting feeling one gets when coming out of a darkened theater into a bright summer day. Except instead of a car with air conditioning waiting for us, we just had a couple more miles of hilly road. We stumbled and bumbled along and finally reached the end of the walk. I asked Dawn if she wanted to do some more and she flashed me some sort of hand signal that I think means "You're number one!" Of course, it might mean something else. After a shower and an early dinner, I crashed hard. The next day we got up extra early so we could get in a walk before it got too hot. A taxi picked us up a little after 7 a.m. and dropped us off six miles down the road in the opposite direction from the day before. I still didn't have my ruck, but I used Dawn like a pack mule and loaded her cargo pockets with some extra water and snack food. Much comfier this time around, we ambled along, taking our time, pausing to admire yellow finches flitting about some bushes by the road. When we passed through Wytheville's downtown, we stopped to take pictures of The Big Pencil and other interesting landmarks. Then our leisurely pace brought us back to the hotel in time to clean up, check out, and head back home.  
Dawn uses Wytheville Office Supply's "Big Pencil" to jot down an idea And that basically wrapped up our weekend. We might not have gotten in many miles, but we did get the ball rolling again. And that ball is going to keep on picking up momentum and someday soon we'll be rolling it right through the Cumberland Gap. No Thrills on Mulberry Hill After each trip back home, it takes a long time to drive across the state and pick up the route where I left it off before. For today�s journey, I woke at 1 a.m. and arrived at Dawn�s house at 3. She refuses to be seen in public without first doing her make-up magic and all the other things that women do, so it was around 5 when we hit the road. Then we had to drive a little less than six hours to get to Marion, VA. Even though we were a little weary from the long drive, we planned to up our mileage today and do a nine-mile hike along the hilly roadside. I had an ulterior motive for doing that many miles, but I�ll get to that later. We called for a taxi and an ancient-looking man pulled up in an equally weathered station wagon. Piling in, we told him our destination and then we were off...in the wrong direction. �Um, we�re going to Seven Mile Ford. That way,� I said, pointing. After zig-zagging through side streets, the cab straightened out and, for a second time, we were off. Dawn struck up a conversation with our cabbie, and we leaned forward trying to understand his mumbled responses. Looking over the front seat, I noticed the left blinker light flashing on and off, on and off, which it would continue to do until, five minutes later, he actually turned and the blinker reset. More alarmingly, the speedometer didn�t work, its needle buried below the zero. There was no worry about speeding, though. Our cabbie compensated by driving slow enough for anyone on a motorized vehicle to pass us. And, yes, that does include scooters. "So, what�s your name?" I asked. "Friends call me Dummy." "Dummy?" I asked, incredulously. I�m guessing this wasn�t the first time someone had a problem understanding him because he scribbled on a pad with a nub of a pencil and showed it to me. The pad read Dunner. Dawn covered up my gaffe by taking over the conversation, telling Dummy�I mean, Dunner�what we were doing. "Oh," he said. "Murzlbubble." At least, that�s what it sounded like to me. Dawn kept up the chit chat, explaining how we use MapQuest to plan our routes and then scout ahead in the car so we know what landmarks to expect along the route. �Because you can�t afford to get lost when you�re way out here on foot,� she said. �Murzlbubble.� Those words would turn out to be prophetic. Dawn�s, not Dunner�s. Dunner dropped us off at the town limits for Seven Mile Ford and we turned around and started hiking back toward our hotel. Less than a mile into the trip, I was either rehashing our funny cab ride with Dawn or just plain daydreaming, because I never noticed the sign announcing where Route 11 turned and crossed over the Interstate. As we forged ahead, I wondered aloud why we hadn�t passed the next landmark written on my paper. �I wonder why we haven�t passed the next landmark written on my paper,� I said.
�Well, even if we aren�t on the right road we�re still going in the right direction. We�ll still get there. Trust me.� She shouldn�t have trusted me. Not only did we hike the Mount Everest of hills, which we could have avoided, we found, at the very top of it, a locked gate blocking further progress. �You�ve got to be kidding,� Dawn said. �Oh,� I mumbled, �Murzlbubble.�
Dawn eyed the dead end and I could tell from the glint in her eye that she was considering a dead end for me as well. But then purplish red bunches clustered on trees at the top of this hill caught her attention, and her bloodlust was slaked. �Omigosh,� she said, �these are mulberries!� She plucked the low-hanging ones, popping them into her mouth, and I pulled on the higher-up branches to lower them to picking height. �See?� I said, �had we gone the right way we would have missed this!� I�m too much of a gentleman to print her reply. As we stumbled back down the hill, I noticed a purple blotch on her chin. �You�ve got a mulberry stain right there,� I said. �Murzlbubble,� she said, her concern over appearance having evaporated in the heat. About a mile later, we found ourselves back at the point where I missed our turn. Nearby was an Interstate Campground so we stepped inside and once again I was rescued from a �dead end� by something on the side of the road. We filled up our water bottle, bought a quart of Gatorade and a bag of cashews. After we cooled down and confirmed our directions with the cashier, once again we were off. Due to our little detour up Mulberry Hill, it was now the hottest part of the day and we still had to walk almost all of our originally planned nine miles. There was, however, another planned stop not far up the road, an oasis called the Dip-Dog Stand. We bumbled into the takeout joint hungry and very thirsty. We each tried the trademark �Dip Dog,� which was just a fairly stale corndog, split some onion rings, and had plenty to drink. Then, once again, we were off.
I checked my notes and guesstimated how far we�d gone since the last landmark, then added in the distance for our mulberry adventure (it sounds so much more exciting that way, doesn�t it?). �About 7-� miles,� I said. �Really? It feels like we�ve gone 8.� Our feet were dragging and one clump of grass snagged Dawn�s foot and nearly sent her tumbling. Another time, instead of pushing a low-hanging branch out of the way or stepping over, I walked through it and cut my shin. As with Dawn�s mulberry stain, I was too tired to care. We ran out of water walking along the desolate road, but with less than two miles to go we finally came upon a Marathon gas station. �How appropriate,� I said, �I feel like I just ran a marathon.� As we guzzled two bottles of Gatorade at a picnic table by the front door, the piped-in music (or, piped-out, I guess) started playing a song with a refrain about going on till the break of dawn. �Break of Dawn,� she mused. �They got that right.� But there was a silver lining on our black-cloud-of-a-day. I�d done some calculations before the trip, made a Mulberry Hill adjustment as we walked, and when we reached a bridge going over a burbling river in Marion I halted and said to Dawn, �Time to pull out those treats I bought at the Marathon!�
We munched on Jacks and stashed the silly little prizes in our pockets. Then we slogged the last mile, plodding through downtown Marion with a little bit of renewed vigor. Even though we�d been up all day, our nine-mile trip had turned into an eleven-mile death march, and we were both sun-baked and weary, our enthusiasm was at its highest point of the day. And there�s only one thing I can say about that. Murzlbubble! |
Which way are we going?
The road to nowhere
Saved by the berries!
Kind of sums of the day so far
A bloody shin is the price for being lost