Wanderlust : Hillsville, VA 10.30.13 - 11.2.13 - Day 2 Hiking

Our second morning in Virginia gave Craig and I another excuse to explore.  We intended to hike the second half of Beaver Dam Trail, which we started the day before.  Mother Nature, the lovely thing that she is, tried to deter us with drizzling rain, so we spent the first half of our hike time driving around the town and viewing sites like this:

and this:

Apparently that mother finally realized that we weren't giving up, so she sent the sun out to greet us and let us hike for a while.

This particular section of the trail has three wide streams so bridges were constructed so that hikers could cross them without getting hurt. A lovely thought, but it definitely took away from the whole "nature" feeling. Oh and PS, I am not a fan of walking on grates. I make a point to walk around them on the sidewalks, but there was no way to get around these. So I carefully put one foot in front of the other {literally} and walked on the center beam of every.single. bridge we came across.  There were only a couple of taunts, and responding dirty looks, exchanged during these trying times.

I am happy to respond that I lived to tell the story of the Great Grate Walking of 2013.

 

You see how small Craig looks in this picture? He was dwarfed by, well, everything.  So you can imagine that I looked like a freakin' munchkin a la Willy Wonka.

The colors were, as always, my favorite part of the hike. By this point, I sounded like a broken record: Oh my gosh, it's gorgeous! Look at this color! How is that even natural?! A rockin' record, but broken none the less.

Nature's very own sculpture garden. Thank you, God, for leaves and trees. Thank you, God, for all I see.

Look Craig! It is nature's very own fire baton! Yeah, that actually came out of my mouth.  And I wonder why he thinks I am crazy.

On the way back to our family, we passed by this cemetery. I made Craig stop, back up the car, and wait for me while I got out to take this shot.  Apparently we stopped on a one-way street going the wrong way though, because I had to hustle back into the car to get out of the way of a vehicle headed at us straight on. Good times.

By this time, it was only about 10:30 am and we had lots more to do that afternoon (like the trick-or-treating that I already mentioned), so I'd say that it was a morning well spent and a fantastic way to start the day. We both remarked on several occasions that we could get used to having these trails available at all times.

What should you take from this post?  Well, if you live in Hillsville, Va then watch out.  If you aren't careful, you may have a crazy family moving in to take over your hiking trails and cemeteries...to take pictures of them, not to take over...nevermind.