TR: The virginia creeper trail

[swamphox]

Well this ride was so easy that I'm going to eventually invite my 60 year old parents to try it, and my dad completed bypass surgery in early may. Easy and pretty.



Lots of cool features. My favorite of which is what I am calling the swamp in the sky. Maybe a mile or two into the trail while still near White Top you can see a swamp through the woods, not exactly what one normally sees on top of a mountain.



Being a former Christmas tree farm employee I really enjoyed looking at the Christmas tree farms as well. One of the farms has a contract with Publix and sends over 100k trees their way every year.



Abingdon and Damascus are both pretty towns. Lots of nice houses. The highland festival was also going on, so my wife and I spent an afternoon looking at craft type items and I listened as a soap vendor told us that he: used to be a soap chemist, invented almost all the soaps on the market, and that most normal soaps will destroy your skin. Apparently he's now making soap that are good for your skin now as some sort of penance. They smelled good though, and since I'm a ****** for lunaticc rants, I bought several for my grandmothers.



We stayed at Dancing Bear rentals (Mama Bear specifically) in Damascus. We grilled out steaks with free charcoal. This was great. 85 bucks a night wasn't too bad for a place with a functional kitchen. This was certainly the way to go. Here's why: When I go on vacations I like to eat local. I can eat at Crapplebees back home. Same with Shoneys. Same with Ryans. The place we ate at on the night we didn't grill out was called the House on Main in Abingdon. It was nice on the inside. The room we ate in had lots of neat pictures of the civil war. The meats were also good, my wife had ribs and I had scallops. Still it wasnt much better than red lobster and sure wasn't worth paying twice what red lobster charges. Also it seemed as if they had a blind chef in their kitchen and someone had mixed up his spice rack as a joke since everything from salads to biscuits had odd and unfitting seasoning added in. One example was that the cheese biscuits had cinnamon on them, why in the name of God would someone do this? 60 bucks for two people, and it was chepaer than the other places in down town Abingdon. As I said, get some steaks, grill out.



Now for the pics:







Katy outside of the Martha Washington Inn in Abingdon







Me in the same spot...one of the few pics of myself that I like where I'm smiling. The Martha Washington Inn was nice. I like old college buildings, so this place was especially cool.







On many portions of the trail I expected to see Hobbits walking up the road or Ring Wraiths or something.







I just thought this little spot looked cool with the hollow tree and all. One of my friends said it reminded him of a scene from Pan's Labyrinth.







Swamp in the sky part 1







Swamp in the sky part 2...sadly a heron had just flown off before I had the chance to get it's picture.







Conjuring up memories of listening to Primus while working at Santa's Tree farm many years ago. Primus is my mental soundtrack for working at the tree farm.







These flowers were everywhere at higher elevations, any clue what they are? They're really unique.







About a hundred feet up on an old railroad trestle.







Looking across the same trestle.







My over the shoulder shot...







Found this little group of small mushrooms that looked like they belonged in a Super Mario Bros game. Find them and you'll get a one up!



Anyhow, more pics here

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album ... =819995314

[VA_skier]

Your swamp in the sky was most likely made by beavers, lots of them in that area. Next time you are in Abingdon skip the House on Main and go to Bellas.

[skipink]

The floweres are Jewel Weed, sometimes called Touch-Me-Nots. They come in both yellow and orange and are often found near stinging nettles as the sap from the stems eases the nettle pain. In the late summer and fall when the seed pods are mature, just touching one seed pod will cause a chain reaction of exploding pods.

[marzski]

Thanks for the pics. Definitely on the list of things to do in the near future.

[Southern Skiing]

Creeper Trail is very cool! We've rode it 3 times this summer, never gets old.

[SKISC]

skipink;181017 wrote:
The floweres are Jewel Weed, sometimes .



Wow. Jewel weed on the creeper trail. Sounds like something Wayne would really enjoy.