I headed off to see my sister Kim and her husband Don who live in Suffolk, VA, on Friday, 23 October, 2009. For once, in recent trips down there, the travel time was reasonable. I stopped near Hog Island WMA off of Route 10 on the way down to paddle. Hog Island was closed but an adjacent area was open via a public boat landing. That is were I hoped to put in anyhow so I was okay. I assume that Hog Island WMA was closed because of nesting and/or transient fowl.
I tried to find some new places to put my kayak in the water near Kim’s but was stymied by a seeming lack of boat landings. I thought I had a good option on Lake Burnt Mills but the landing was closed for construction…. I ended up driving around western Suffolk for 80 minutes to no avail. Since we planned on going to Driver Days (is that something you get when you’ve been on the interstate for too long?) and it was nearly 11:00 AM, I decided to check back in at Kim’s to see what was up.
After Kim and Don got ready, we headed off to Driver for the festival. Driver is a town just about a mile from Kim’s which, from my experience, has a jaded history. I once went there to get the BBQ propane tank filled up at the general store, which is not there anymore, and another story. These Mayberry, RFD, guys are sitting out on the porch of the store smoking and joking. One of them tells me that the propane tank filling guy isn’t there but maybe he can help me. He seems fairly competent but after he starts trying to fill the tank the obviously not well attached hose pops of the tank and starts flailing around like an unmanned fire hose except for the fact that it is spewing out a flammable gas not far from a bunch of cigarette smoking yokels! I grabbed the tank and got the eff out!
A tornado ripped through there last August hopping and skipping it’s way across the Suffolk area. It took out one of my sister’s friend’s house near the hospital, wiped out the general store in Driver, missed the trailerhome complex, also in Driver, missed Kim’s neighborhood and missed her office complex which is about ten minutes away from her home. Bad luck not withstanding, the town put on a pretty good fair with a classic car display, military robot demonstrations, tons of food, and lots of arts and crafts. And it was a beautiful day.
On Sunday, while Kim and Don were at church, I fell back on my old faithful paddle, Bennett’s Creek, not five minutes from Kim’s. Afterward, I took off a bit before midday on Route 58 en route Staunton River State Park where I intended to paddle and camp. The drive was pretty good and I’d never been in Virginia between Tidewater and the southwestern part of the state so it was a new experience. For what ever reason, time and/or the very low water level, down four or five feet maybe, I did not paddle. The campsite was great as long as you could avoid the dropping acorns. I never realized how loud those things were. At night in my tent, the dropping acorns sounded like small branches falling out of the trees. I love the late season camping though. Only two other sites were in use.
On Monday I headed off to White Rocks campsite in the Jefferson National Forest. I continued west on Route 58 until I reached Stuart just a bit west of Martinsville where NASCAR raced the previous weekend. From Stuart, I took Route 8 to Christiansburg. That was a seriously curvy, fun road! I can’t wait to pack up the scooter for some camping and head back down that way next year! More on that theme later.
From Christiansburg I sought out 460 west to Pembroke where I hoped to head north on Route 635 to Route 613 to White Rocks. On the way, after looking at the map, I thought I found a short cut via Route 700 off of 460 to 613. I took it but obviously hadn’t worked it out right because when I got to 613, I went the wrong way and wound back up on Route 460. Come to find out, if I had gone the right way, I would have backdoored into White Rocks. Nonetheless, that was another awesomely beautiful and curvaceous road. It is begging for me take the scooter to it! Next year or I am queer!
When I finally got to White Rocks, it was totally deserted. The bathrooms and washing facilities were shut down but there were two Porta Potties. I really didn’t need any of that but if you are car camping, a sit down crapper is a bonus. The leaves were past peak and it was desolate. I could hear coyotes howling up in the mountains. I hiked around a bit before eating dinner then I hung out reading and writing by lamplight until it got down to about 45 degrees at which time I decided, without a campfire, that it was time to get into my tent and sleeping bag. I read for a couple of hours more before shutting it down for the night.
I woke up to intermittent rain sometime in the wee hours and that continued until I finally decided to break camp and head out for home at about 9:00 AM. I headed NNE on Route 635 which turned in to County Road 17 which turned into Route 600 which turned into Route 18 which dropped me into Covington after about 45 miles where I got on Interstate 64 to Interstate 81 to Interstate 66 which took me home. The trip from White Rocks to Covington was another awesomely curvy road which calls to me and my Kawasaki ZRX-1200. Next year for sure!
