Back to The Virginia Creeper

A little over a year ago in October 2006 I wrote about biking the Virginia Creeper trail. Well, today we did it again, once more with friends from our church. They had arrived yesterday afternoon and camped overnight last night not far from the bike rental place in Damascus, Virginia (in southwestern Virginia next to the North Carolina and Tennessee state lines). Lisa, her friend Tanya and her husband Jamie, and myself couldn't leave until this morning. So just after six Tanya and Jamie arrived in their minivan and we took off on the 3-some hour drive to Damascus.

About 20 minutes after we got there around 10 the group from church pulled into the driveway in the church van. After everyone got a bike, we shuttled to the top of Whitetop Mountain and started enjoying the steady ride downhill back to JC's Outdoors, the outfit that had provided the bikes. It took us about 3 hours this time to cover the 17 miles from mountaintop back to the "Ole Barn" where JC's is located at: a bit longer than it did last year. But this time Lisa and I really were enjoying the scenery a bit more, given the better weather than last time.

But anyway, we took a lot of pictures along the route. Here are just a few. I can't wait to see the ones that Lisa took after they get developed: there's some really beautiful stuff in there.

Okay, here's the pics from my digital camera...

Lisa and me from early on the trail.

Tanya and Jamie, also from early along the Virginia Creeper trail.

Lisa at the first waterfalls we came to.

The intersection of the Virginia Creeper and the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian trail runs all the way from northeast Georgia in the south, to the mountains of Maine way to the north. We know some girls from church who actually hiked the entire Appalachian Trail a while back.

A pic tha Lisa took of me at the second waterfalls we came to. Those things in my ears are the earbud speakers attached to my MP3 player.

Scott Baxley, the associate and youth pastor of our church, at yet another waterfall.

On the way down I started off listening to Straight Outta Lynwood by "Weird Al" Yankovic. After that had played completely I used my MP3 player to listen to the soundtrack from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and then some modern classical stuff during the final leg of the journey. The very last thing that was playing on it was the soundtrack for Peter Jackson's King Kong: no matter what the movie is that Jackson makes, the music for his movies are always excellent for listening to while being part of the landsape (last year I listened to most of the soundtrack from The Lord of the Rings during the trip).

Anyway, that's my report on where we were today. If/when Lisa gets her pics back I'll try to remember to post those here, too :-)