Well Thursday found us exploring the beautiful New River basin in the afternoon as we traveled several new roads in the mountains that eventually led us down to the back roads of N.C. and Virginia after a late lunch in the town of Sparta at JB'S pizza place. Wow what incredible scenery and some of the beautiful old farm houses stood abandoned and lonely amidst some awesome structures called dream homes.
We started the day with a 7'ish roll out to foggy skies and very wet conditions. I emptied the rain gauge again and we are now making up for the wet period we had in July with gully washers and rain each night. We were heading to Sparta around noon'ish for a hair appointment for Nancy and then a late lunch with Patrick and Kathryn; so I started the morning with a couple cackleberries with sliced tomato's and a hot pepper. I piddled around the gardens trying to loosen the wet soil around a few plants so the roots could get a little oxygen and not rot. I picked 20 or more tomato's as all of a sudden they are turning red and falling off the vine. They are a small tomato with a tough skin and perfect for salads with incredible taste. The upper gardens drain fairly well but the lower garden is really sopping wet and the cucumber don't like wet feet(roots)t so they are looking rather abysmal as are the beans. The watermelon is still growing in my sack hanging on the tomato support as are the vines. I will definitely have to mow today if the rain holds off and the yards dry out.
While Nancy was at the hair gallery I visited the library for a couple hours catching up on the Wall Street Journal, the Winston paper and of course the local newspaper. There is an awesome reading room there with comfortable chairs. I picked up a couple more Sandra Brown books as well as a couple books for Nancy.
Nancy buzzed me at the library and I picked her up and headed to JB's to meet up with Patrick and Kathryn to eat. We had a delicious veggie pizza for lunch around 2:30 and that held us for the rest of the evening. We decided to explore the county and wanted to show the Tracy's some new roads and we found a new one as well that ended over in the small community of Baywood in Virginia. We traveled some very desolate gravel/dirt roads that ran along the New River for miles and saw some amazing farm land and homesteads. The road was appropriately named the River Drive and at times Nancy wanted to turn around and go back as the GPS indicated the road dead ended. We came out in a small community not seen from route 58, a 4 lane road that runs through Independence and Galax, Virginia. What a nice community and they even have a small elementary school nestled back in the hills. There were some very big farms in the area as well with lots of activity in an around the many farm buildings.
Well we headed back to Sparta to drop them off and then headed home just in time to beat another storm that lasted well into the night with torrents of rain at times. We never got our daily hike in for the past 2 days and I can feel the spare tire inflating once again especially after that delicious pizza. I did get in some NFL time with the game between the super bowl champs Seahawks versus the Packers. The champs were up 10 when the sandman calleth in the third quarter, LATER
