Civil War & Waterfalls

Day 28: Today was going to be a full day of driving, hiking, seeing waterfalls, eating and spending our time in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. But, we couldn’t get out of bed. We slept in until around 9:30 a.m. at a Cracker Barrel on the ledge overlooking Roanoke.

When we did get on the road, we set the GPS for an old swinging bridge in Buchanan while I set up my desk to blog. Chad and I listened to more rock to keep us company. Hall, the car, turned 20 today with 20,000 miles!

Chad also scared the crap out of me while I was blogging and he got such a great kick out of it that he did it again….on camera. That’s twice now! Huuurrr-rough.

Rolling into town, there was a sign on the highway stating that traffic might be slow at 10 a.m. Thinking we missed it, we kept going. We found out that the town was having their Civil War reenactment that weekend and we were coming to town at the tail end of it.

“Chad, I hope your ready. Looks like you’re going be volunteered into the Civil War!”

Free parking was over by the river and we parked next to the old bridge. It looked super sketchy next to the sturdy bridge everyone drives on today. No more than 3 people can be on the old one at a time. Uh…..

It was so windy and the bridge moved like crazy under our feet as we walked. It was a cool experience, until we realized the boards looked pretty worn and some could break under our feet at any moment. 😊 Kinda stupid, but it was a lot of fun and I think it is something you have to experience.

We hung out in a 1940s soda fountain diner that served burgers, sandwiches and ice cream for lunch. Chad and I shared their cheese burger basket and the biscuits and gravy. Chad chatted with the older manager about the search for the best biscuits and gravy and they hit it off on recipe chatting.

I splurged and ordered a banana split for us to share in the old diner. It’s just something you’ve got to do in one of these places. Yum! Chad wasn’t sure the last time he had a split and the lady who served us said she forgot our toppings. She felt so bad and quickly drizzled the finishing touches on the ice cream and we were treated to special caramel sauce to jazz it up.

Finishing our lunch, Chad heard huge explosions from the reenactment and soon we wandered down to the city park where there was an open field with people dressed in military outfits. There were cannons, rifles, horses, swords and men running around trying to fight each other.

It was the most interesting thing I have seen today. (Chad did hear some of the guys laughing while they fake smacked each other with swords 😊). What a serendipitous moment we should arrive when this was taking place!

We drove through the Blue Ridge Parkway mountain highway to get to a hiking trail head that would lead us to the Apple Orchard Falls. (tight snatchbacks – cough, I mean switch backs – were everywhere and sometimes Chad’s stomach dropped as he would look over the ledge while navigating the borderless roads. The mountain valleys were intense and vast).

It was midday, with plenty of light left to go on an adventure and we bounded down the rocky trail. Hopping from rock to rock, it was all fun and games until we realized we would have to climb back up this steep slope coming back to the car.

The trail crossed over the Appalachian Trail and I couldn’t imagine hiking over 2,000+ miles! I would need some serious training and the right kind of gear. Down and down we went into a crevice on a mountain side and we finally ended up at a large waterfall at the bottom.

The climb back to the top was hard work for me and Chad made it seem effortless. My buns, thighs and calves were burning with the many stairs, rocks and steep inclines. We’ll go for a few more hikes and I’ll be fine.

At the end of the climb, I noticed Chad had some cool looking sweat drops on this shoulders and chest. But they wouldn’t brush off. They were little clear mound of water. After having previously researched heat rash for myself back in Florida, I recognized Chad had a current case of clogged pores filled with trapped sweat. Poor guy had heat rash! He scrubbed up back in the car and hopefully that won’t happen again.

Back in Kansas City at the Art Museum, we saw a painting of a land bridge from somewhere in Virginia. I thought that was cool and never thought I was going to be able to see it. Chad, on the other hand, had decided in him mind that one day he was going to see it and it would most likely be on this trip! Well, how cool is that?

The lighting was hard because the sun was setting, but the massive rock cavern was hard to even fit on the phone screen. A highway even runs across the top to this day and it’s sturdy! We jogged on the mile trail to the end to see a waterfall and traded piggyback carrying each other parts of the way. There was a yoga session on a cement bridge and a few sprinting bursts on the way back to the starting point.

The natural land bridge was unique, and I can’t believe it exists after all the potential harmful things humans could have done to it. George Washington used to own the space and even had a little cabin there to hang out at. Only $8 per person (free parking), why not see something amazing?

EEEEEEE! We used the MSR cookstove to boil water for our MREs. Yipppeee! So, I planned a meal of dehydrated mac n’ cheese, biscuits and gravy, and for dessert, apple crisp. After converting ounces to cups for proper measuring, we mixed our dehydrated food packets with the boiling water. Tada!

Everything was super good and I would eat it again. I thought the biscuits were better than or identical to the ones we had for lunch at the diner. Chad agreed everything was tasty, especially if you were hiking in the woods all day.

In Lexington, we pulled off into a truck stop for the night and the station had a Burger King and a Caribou Coffee. Somehow the WiFi is better at Burger King and I finished up the blog from yesterday. Chad recommended also writing blog 28 because we don’t know where the next connection point will be. Double whammy!