We hustled out of Dixie Caverns campgrounds and headed toward Roanoke. A few miles down the road, after the trucks left 11 for the alternate route around town, we arrived at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. We rode through the campus and marvelled at its beauty and its astonishingly fine upkeep. Though the grass was allowed to grow out another half-inch in the summer heat, every piece of the grounds was perfect, as though Alumni Day were in the offing. A lovely spot.
Getting around Roanoke was some morning work, riding a northwest circumference to head back out onto the old road. At Hollins, in the lee of Tinker Mountain and Carvins Cove beyond, we stopped for a group photograph at the "Tinker Creek" sign on the highway. Yo, yo yo, Annie
Dillard! After the last truck stop at Route 220, where we had a sandwich sharing the seating with a group of "carnies" awaiting the arrival of the last vehicle in their caravan. They hadn't slept for a couple of days, and from the looks of their vehicles, probably don't get much sleep even when their life is kinder. From then on the road opened up nicely, and we rode well. The heat was growing in the Roanoke bowl, and we saw bank time & temperature signs in Troutville
that read 96 and then 101 degrees! Yikes. With frequent shade and water stops, and with a gentler road and a friendlt breeze, our was the nicest mid-90s ride imaginable (and bank thermnometers always run hot, right?). We stopped in Buchanan (the James River watershed now, the river flowing east across the mountains, not west through the mountains as with the New River). Soon, however, the day wore on, and bore down. Then on a sweat-busting roller some five miles below Natural Bridge, a pickup-truck stopped right in front of us. I was
immediately concerned, and befuddled by the "Peddie School" sticker on some knucklehead pick-up driver until it dawned on me that this was Dave Babcock, not some off driver stopping us on a hill top. After appropriate greetings, and some ice-dripping drinks from a cooler in the truckbed, the kids chucked their BOB trailers into Dave's truck and we flew down the road. Natural Bridge appeared in a moment, and after a water/shade stop there at the Visitor Center, we rolled on to the KOA at Fancy Hill. With Dave's help we shopped up the road, then ate dinner and fell into our tents. 53 miles, a day off in the morning, and some hometown family in the kids' world. Plus, there's a chilled watermelon in the cooler for toomorrow night!
-- PJClements
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