Jeremiah Watt

Well I did have a roof over my head at least the semblance of a roof. But the rain and wind beat me out this time and morning came both slow and cold for me. You know how it is when you are tenting in the rain and you know that you are slowly getting wet as the night goes by...........but there is really nothing that YOU can do about it. That was my night at the Blackwater Church. The wind came up just after I tucked in as did the quantity of rain that fell.

The wind to my misforune blew the rain in at a slant and over time filled my stairwell with rain up the bottom half of my sleeping bag,,,,,,,,,,,,,and from the waist up it just kept it moist instead of soaked. I did not notice in the darkenss, that when I laid my tent doen first that I had indeed covered a drain hole. Having done so meant the water that did trap was slow to leave...........it also assuered me of a steady supply of bugs to pick off thru the night.

I headed out just after 7 towards the actual town of Catawba, the map said 10 miles, and the ODO on the bike read 22.5 when I hit it. The wind this am is firece, I have not had a terrible time with wind for the most part but today was a struggle into the headwind.So it is I stopped at Catawba Store and bought a huge coffee to warm up with. I had 2 Fig Newt's and called her breakfast. The next town up the road is Fincastle and the road gets very narrow, untended and cloaked in heavy trees and a fair scattering of dissident dogs.

I finally took a sharp turn to the south at about the 10 mile mark adn this changed the wind to a left side wind for me and made pedallingh a little less burdensome. I was pooped by Fincastle, and pulled into a little roadside diner and had a Burger and Fries. It was a welcome addition to the Fig Newts that I had a while back, I think that the tum-tum apperciated it...............I know the legs did.

Fincastle is in Botentourt County, which by the way used to be of such an extent that it included Ill, INd, Va, Mich, Minn, Ohio and a part of Penn as its boundries. Assigned to Lord Botentourt of England back in 1762 I believe. And the locals pronounce the word os (Bot-en-Tot), I cannot tell you how bad the French must cringe when they hear us pronounce a name such as this.

The town of Fincastle resides on a steep hill,,,,,,,,,,a very steep hill that I had to push my bike up since I came to a stop sign at the bottom and was in the wrong gear to get on up the hill. At the top is a psectacualr Courthouse adn set of buildings dateing back to the latter 1700's as well as a Museum for the county.

The curator, Anne gave me a full and descriptive background on the importance of the area for coal, logging etc. In the end bad directions and hard to find signs would see me climb that darned hill back to the top a total of 3 times after the first push to the top...........I was really ready to leave the town by then.

I am headed due south towards Buchanan as my final days end but I had several miles of very narrow road adn many hills to pull in getting to that point. The overcast sky has given way to bright sun interspersed with scattered clouds, the vibrant colors of the overhanging trees makes the miles and hills slip by mostly un-noticed.........but nothing makes the dogs dissappear.

I was dogged good that day by at least a dozen. Adn thus it was after many miles of pedalling that I cam e to the easy portion of my trip, the last 8 miles inot BUchanan ar RIGHT along the rivers edge and thus they are also mostly flat.

NOw so that you do understand that MIRACLES do happen, and PRAYERS are indeed answered..............I heade strait to the town Library to wrok on the blog once again. And these sweet gals said......"why of course you can work on pics sweety, just let us know what you all need and we will help make it work for you" Excuse me I said but do you ladies actually work here"...................... Poochie Maggie, I couldn't believe my good fortune.

So, I got my junk off the bike and worked till 6pm, closing time and got several days worth of pics up in that time.I made an executive decision and decided that since they are open on Saturday from 9am till 1pm that I would work on the blog all that time. By the time the Library closed it was getting close to dark and I still had no groceries for the night nor a place to camp.

So I got directions and headed for the grocery store described by the towns folks as "third world", and they are not lying. I thought that I had maybe slipped thru a magic time portal and stepped out into the Russia that we visited last year. Boy Howdy, this was a bleak store to be real honest. So I bought some crackers and a block of cheese, along with some soap and what not for washing clothes.

I headed back to the other end of town right along the river banks and went to the local coin-op laundry. I washed everything, and dried everything including my tent. I pinned some of those smelly things you put in with drying clothes........to the inside of my unruly bag of sleep. I ate crackers and cheese while this all got done up. It was VERY dark and already very cold for 8:30pm, and the search for a camp spot had to start now.

SO it was at 8:30pm that night in Buchanan, while walking the streets and trying to figure out where to camp for the night that I met R.J Cash Jr..........actually I met his great looking car first then RJ. RJ, had his car parked out on the street under a glowing neon sign for the old timmey looking town Theatre which I thought looked very fitting given it was a 1938 Chevy. The car was a real beauty, done up by RJ when he was just 18 along with the help of his Grandfather.

Its the baby of RJ's life, and is kept inside and driven just on special occassions. I got to talking to RJ, and learned there is more to the man than just these hot rod cars...........in just a few words I found out that RJ is a devout Chiristian, and had lost the real love of his wife a few years back...............that being his wife. Tears streamed down his cheek just that quickly as we talked, and shared our stories of how and when we first gave our selves over to Christ. I came away with this, that all marriages would be better off, if we cared as deeply for our mates as a guy like RJ did for his................it made me ask myself if indeed i LOVED MY WIFE AS DEEPLY AND IF SO...............WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I TOLD HER SO!!!

I outwitted old man cold that night. I took a wallk down along the rivers edge, where I had seen a baseball diamond, and there I found one of those buildings where they sell hotdogs during the games that was not locked up tight. Yes, I went right in without asking permission so I could avoid a little cold. I threw my pad and bag out on the wood floor and slept quite well..............and without by the way any guilt.

Good Night and God Bless