Laurel Fork

When you move away it’s always hard to pick and choose what events warrant a six-hour round trip and someone always thinks you should’ve come home when you didn’t. Birthdays, church homecomings, reunions, weddings, etc. As we’ve gotten older and busier we go home less but we try to choose those prime events where we can see the most people and get the most bang for our buck. Some holidays win out over others.

For us, Christmas has always been the constant. We’ve never skipped it. My mom’s entire family is always in Pound for the holiday and both of my dad’s brothers along with their closest cousins are there too. One Christmas, as often happens during holidays, my dad started romanticizing his younger days. His brothers and cousins soon joined in waxing poetic about the Laurel Fork trail near the Pound dam. They hadn’t been up there in years and truth be told it’s entirely possible that not a one of them had ever been there sober. The days when they ran through the hollers and trails of southwestern Virginia were long gone. They got it in their head that come spring when they were all back in town for Easter they’d get on that trail again.

The cold months passed and April arrived, cooler than expected. Easter was never a given for us, we remained non-committal until the last possible minute and always made a game-time decision. This particular year we packed up the dogs in the Subaru drove South on I-81 until we reached Abingdon where the dogs know it’s time to lay down because nothing but curves lay ahead for the next hour while we trekked as far as one can go into southwestern Virginia.  The Pound. 

My husband went ready to hit Laurel Fork with both dogs and some of my dad's family. When it came time to put their money where their mouth was only one of my dad’s cousins and my husband were going to make the trek. These men had hunted, fished, camped and carried on in places like these and maybe they didn’t want to relive it.

I had, personally, never been on the Laurel Fork trail and were it not for the events that transpired that Easter weekend I likely never would have. After not hearing from the husband for several hours I knew something was up and when I called he informed me he'd lost one of the dogs. 

Our Dolly is a rescue who had been a part of our family for only a few months. She’s part hound and part demon, her heightened energy and penchant for whining make her a lot of work. Word soon spread through our tiny town and when family members learned that the closest thing I’ll ever have to a child was missing in the woods it didn’t take long before they rallied to me. Relatives showed up in droves, some of them simply to sit in my car while I cried and threatened to divorce my husband if we didn’t find her.

My dad hiked up on one trail and his brother, Tim, drove up and to walk back down in from the other side. For hours we all traversed the trails and former trails of Pine Mountain. Night fell and still no Dolly. Cut to resurrection morning and my family in the woods calling for a dog instead of at the sunrise service. After a break for Easter dinner, night fell and still no Dolly.

Monday morning held a happy ending for us and Dolly. She'd had her fun and waited to be found in the parking lot at the Laurel Fork trail. Still wearing her hiking backpack and a bit worse for the wear she was ready to go home. 

I like to believe her antics were a ploy to get my daddy and his brother in those woods again but maybe she is just ornery. 

Colorado

Remember when I had a life...and a blog. I'm beginning to get back a small part of that now that it's summer. Nevermind the fact that I'm already doing prep work for next year, I have a little more freedom.

I'll do a reflection on the school year at a later time. It's still pretty fresh but FIRST I want to share about our trip to Colorado. If you follow me on insta (mountainmeghan) then you likely felt like you were on this trip with us. But in case you didn't get enough allow me to give you some highlights and pics here on yet another social media outlet.

This was my first time flying and the flight west was amazing! So easy, arrived 30 minutes early and lugged our Osprey packs and luggage around Denver for a few hours while we waited on our room to be ready. We stayed downtown and enjoyed walking along the 16th Street Mall. We were told we had the "swagger of humanitarians" by a friendly street vendor. When I asked her what that looked like she said that we were wearing earth-tones and were smiling as if enjoying vacation but still pondering the injustices of the world. She was pretty dead on actually so we listened to her for 45 minutes.

Denver was a city. Convenient. Wonderful brunch. Lots of people doing their own thing. We attempted public transportation and bragged on ourselves as we got on the bus saying "We are so good at this." Then had to pay a stranger $20 because we didn't have change for our bus fare and after 15 minutes on said bus another well-meaning stranger told us we were on the wrong bus. Despite being a "city" Denver was incredibly friendly. In the end we paid $40 to realize we should just stay downtown and walk to destinations. Lesson learned.

While in Denver we also went to Red Rocks amphitheater which is apparently a rite of passage if you visit Colorado. We would have seen any old band there just to say we went but once we caught wind that Old Crow Medicine Show was going to be there we bumped our trip up from July to June. The venue was breathtaking and OCMS never disappoints. Drew clearly scared our neighbors when they played Carry Me Back to Virginia.

We spent the next day driving into the mountains (we rented a car after our bus fiasco) where we rented sleeping bags to camp in Rocky Mountain National Park that night. We took our Enos and set up camp for the night. We made pork chops and s'mores and lounged and read. Unfortunately it rained and we slept in the car but it was still a great experience.

The next day (my birthday) we had planned for an 11 mile hike along the Lumpy Ridge trail. We chose this trail because it allowed for so many different views, it is supposed to be the best to see all of the landscape of the National Park: mountains, meadows, rocks and a lake that is only from snow melt. Pretty freaking awesome. Sure it rained and I thought I was having a heart attack because my left arm and hand went numb but again totally worth it.

That night we met our friends Sarah and Ben for my birthday dinner in Boulder. I ate my weight in crab legs and we enjoyed catching up with them. Drew and Sarah had planned for us to go to an escape room which was really cool even though we didn't solve the mystery.

We stayed in Boulder for the remainder of our trip relaxing in our awesome Airbnb, or Enos, or eating really yummy food. Admittedly, this trip was to kind of feel out the city of Boulder as a possible move for us in the future and we did love the entire vibe of it. We did a little kayaking and a tour at Celestial Seasonings for our last day.

Our trip home was not quite as smooth, cancelled flights, mechanical issues and an overnight stay in Newark made us more than ready to get home.

The landscape in Colorado was breathtaking everywhere you turned. We WILL go back and hopefully take our family and dogs. But....it's not home. We were so happy to be back in "our" mountains and immersed once again in our small town. It's been so nice to be home and start my summer.

Good Monday Morning

I have successfully completed my first week of student teaching and spent my first weekend getting absolutely no rest. No teaching to speak of yet, I'm still learning names and grading papers but I am so grateful for where I was placed and the students who are there. Never a dull moment.

Friday after school I went to my first job fair. I was so sick of hearing myself talk, which is saying something cause I'm usually pretty good at talking about myself. But enough was enough. Two and a half hours talking about where I'm willing to move, what my classroom management techniques are and what formative assessments mean to me. It was intense but I hope that I did some good.

I spent Saturday morning applying for jobs and still have a lot more applications to fill out this week. Let the fun begin. Yesterday I graded papers and did work for my Technology class. I don't feel very rested to start this rainy Monday morning.

We did take a little break to "hike" on Saturday. For those who don't know much about Roanoke the famous mountain is Mill Mountain which houses a zoo, parks, and the Roanoke star.

Obviously, I don't know much about Roanoke either because I thought you had to hike to the Roanoke star....Nope, ya just drive right to it. We had our hiking gear on and Ike with us thinking we were in for a hike. I really thought we were gonna have to earn our visit to the star. Drew found us a little footpath and we got on the greenway for a bit but I was disappointed.

However, it was nice to be able to drive to the other side of the city and be up in the mountains with this view.

Yesterday was dog park day for Ike which is usually a waste of time because Ike just lays at our feet instead of playing with the other dogs. He has attachment issues. So as per usual we took him out into the actual park surrounding the dog park where he ran and ran. He prefers to be in the woods....and alone. Kinda like his daddy.


Also I have great news to report, we have found PIZZA!!!! It's a little restaurant that we have eaten at numerous times that is in our block but we'd never had their pizza and we hit the jackpot. Thank you Lenore's for helping me love this city more each day.

The last weekend

It's something like the last supper but not as important. I mean you don't need to break bread in remembrance, although that's precisely what we did this morning for brunch.

Next weekend we will be traveling home to haul about half of our material possessions to my parents and the next weekend is moving weekend!!! Therefore this was our last weekend hoo-ra in the Burg.

Unfortunately, it didn't dawn on us Friday night that it would be our last weekend so we stayed home and did this:

Saturday morning we made our usual family trip to the Farmer's Market. And Ike made it a memorable one by shitting everywhere and after Drew cleaned him up with leaves, he could not select any fruits or veggies because his hands were "contaminated." It's probably best we're moving, we couldn't show our faces at that particular farmer's market ever again after yesterday.

We should have known by him making this face for our picture that it would be a memorable trip.

After we recovered from our shame we went for a hike to the Cascades.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We hiked to the Cascades when I first moved up here and Mama's put on a few pounds since then, nothing like sucking bad air for 4 miles to realize just how far you've fallen.

 

 



Last night we stayed in and ordered our favorite pizza and watched the Hokies.

This morning we had brunch at our very favorite place. And it did not disappoint.

 

 

The rest of my day will consist of packing and attempting to get some work done but it's been a perfect farewell weekend. I love you, Blacksburg.

P.S. These farewell posts will likely go on for 2 more weeks.

McAfee Knob

Oh what a beautiful weekend, I'm a winter kind of girl but man am I ready for spring. Snow in March? No, thanks. although we trekked thru snow yesterday, more on that later Upon seeing what an amazingly warm weekend we were in for I decided I wanted to hike on the A.T. for the first time. Such a shame that I never had before, but it won't be my last time. Mark my words.

We decided to tackle McAfee Knob which we drove past every day of our lives when we both worked in Roanoke. And we decided to tackle it with 2 dogs. We are dog-sitting for friends this week who are in the Caribbean, lucky ducks.

 

The trail was actually not bad at all. We made good time and the weather was perfect. The lack of leaves allowed the sun to shine on us all day. Ike and I led and he kept a pretty brisk pace. 

However, as we got closer to the top we reached snow, still lingering. It didn't ruin the hike for us by any means but it did make things a little trickier.

And once we got to the top, though wet and muddy it was wayyyyy worth it. So beautiful.

 

 

Gosh we are lucky to live in these mountains. There really is something majestic about them. I think Drew and I left there knowing this is where we belong. We could never leave these beautiful peaks and valleys.

We had a little lunch before we headed back down. But I will admit that I was a little anxious up on the rock. There were children and dogs running everywhere and ice and I just knew someone was gonna fall off. But thank God no one did, that I saw. My legs weren't very steady either after 4 miles so maybe that's why I was uneasy.

 

I'm excited to go back when everything is green and I would love to see it in the fall. But Drew and I are getting brave in our old age and thinking we may try to camp and hike for a few days on the trail this summer. Maybe down to Damascus???? I have no clue how far that would be or how long it would take us but it would be fun!

 

 

This was the real reason we went:

 

 

We wore these 2 out! They got a bath when we got home and passed out for the rest of the night.

 

 

 

My legs are sore today and my feet are hurting. We led the children's ministry at church this morning and one of the kids said that I wasn't "getting around too good." And he was right. I think I need to invest in some hiking boots.