Damascus, Virginia - Chapter 1
We drove the old red truck down Widener Valley Road in anticipation of our first chance to unpack our bags and truck for the first time since we left Phoenix. Leah's brother Adam and his girlfriend, Shasta, hosted us in their beautiful cabin. As we arrived, late at night, we were greeted with a steak dinner. Not too shabby!
If you didn't read our earlier posts, this cabin is where Leah and I held our Things Are Going Well party back in March. It's a huge, beautiful, log cabin from the 1800s. The Wilson family hosts a massive 4th of July party here every year, and many random poker games on any given day. Adam is a beef cattle farmer in charge of roughly 1000 head of cattle on roughly 1000 acres. I think I ate a steak or a burger twice a day for 25 days during this stop.
I really wish I would have written this closer to the time it actually happened. I have plenty of notes written on what we did with our time in VA, but didn't take time to write down what we were feeling at the time. This was our first chance to unpack, relax, and attempt to get into some sort of routine. We were ready for that change of pace. At the time, it felt like we had all the time in the world to enjoy the farm and good country living, but of course, the time flew by and we were moving on to Iowa. Although it went quickly, we did a lot!
Knowing very well that we'd be eating lots of red meat and potatoes, we knew we'd have to get our asses in gear and exercise more often. We made the farm our playground and gym. We would use resistance bands to do some strength and circuit workouts on the big front porch, and then take off running up and down the long driveway or some of the steep hills in the pasture. Damascus is surrounded by great mountain trails. The Appalachian Trail is just two miles from the cabin. That's a gold mine for trail runners and hikers. Our first trail run there was near Gentry Falls. We chose the wrong trail head and didn't get to see the actual waterfall. We did, however, run into a black bear just a few miles in. I was running just ahead of Leah and I turned around immediately and told her and Diesel to do the same. Turn and run! At the end of that run, we decided we should ask around for advice on proper protocol when encountering a bear. Of course, the most popular response we got was, "never turn and run!" Whoops! Well, we bought a little can of bear spray to run with and learned to talk/sing while we run to make sure the bears knew we were there.
We ran hill repeats at Thee John Garrett's place. Up and down the Lookin' Hill. Best view in the county! We rented and rode bikes down the Creeper Trail on the 4th of July. This was the 2nd hash for the Elbow Deep Hash House Harriers. Ballzy, Calendar Girl, C Jungle, Red Solo, Goes Both Ways, Osama, Just AJ, and Just Shasta took a drunken ride down the trail. C Jungle and Red both decided they don't know how to ride bikes and crashed hard. We ran the Beach Grove Connector and the Iron Mountain Trail for an awesome 8 miler. The hay field next to Jim's house provided us with endless amounts of hills to run while stepping over chopped up snakes and groundhogs. One day, we ran a short distance from the cabin to Jim's woodshop. It was so hot and humid that Diesel refused to run back with us, so he got to ride in the back of 'grandpa's' truck to go home. Leah and I ran through a different hay field that led to briers, thorns, death spikes, and lots of things to make you itch. We did more hill repeats until we were red faced and then sat in the chilly creek to cool off. My favorite run was a 13 mile day. We started at Hidden Valley Lake and ran the Brumley Mountain Trail all the way to The Channels, a 400-million-year-old maze of crevices formed in sandstone. It was great weather, beautiful views, no bears, and some friends met us at The Channels and had cold beer for us. And I finally got to meet Luke! Rejoice! That's a good chunk of our running in VA. After we left, we realized that we didn't take full advantage of the trails in the area and felt a little guilty.
Our first few weeks in VA also included lots of socializing with friends and family. The cabin hosted many nights of eating, drinking, and being merry. Leah and Teea drank so many White Russians one night that they were being called White Wussians. We had Lynchberg Lemonades by the pool with Teea and Jeramiah, roughly a thousand Busch Lights at Eva and John Garrett's house, and of course, the big 4th of July party at the cabin. Leah and I were put to work around the cabin to prepare for the event. I can handle counting paper plates and solo cups, and murdering hornets and wasps, but it turns out that weed whacking the whole property is something I wasn't ready for. We should have had hazmat suits. We made the place look damn good, but in the process, we shredded lots of poison ivy that ended up strewn all over our bodies. We were covered with itchy skin for the next two weeks. The party was an absolute success. We ate well, we partied even better, and danced until Josh Boone threw up on himself in a bouncy house. An absolute success. The 5th of July proved to be my most hungover day in recorded history.
Teea and Jeramiah took us to Sparta, NC one weekend to hang out with some of their other friends and it turned out to be one of our favorite weekends. We went to a tiny, hole-in-the-wall bar that serves all-you-can-eat crab legs. We ate ourselves sick and then spent the rest of the night playing games at Katlyn and G's house. We learned a new game called Bang Ball that left us drunk, beaten, and bruised. The next day we crashed Jeramiah's family reunion and had just as much fun. The highlight of that reunion goes to either Jeramiah's brother Jake, who was sporting 5 pounds of chunky deodorant under each arm, or Jeramiah's dad, who lightly kicked a noisy dog during the pre-meal prayer.
Ugh! There is too much to write! We did so much and I want to write it all, but I just can't. Keep an eye out for a future post about our side trip to Washington DC and NYC.
- Tyler
Playing around on a pretty bridge before all-you-can-eat crab!