Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

Today we walked through Troutville and Cloverdale, Virginia. We again covered 15 miles. The morning temperature was 55 degrees F and the afternoon was 70 degrees.

These two areas are northern suburbs of Roanoke. Wikipedia describes them as being “part of the Roanoke Metropolitan Statistical Area.” If that isn’t a degrading comment, I don’t know what is. Anyways, as such, well, they are such and such. I don’t get much from suburbs. Route 11 tends to be a main drag through shopping centers, care dealerships, mobile home dealerships, RV dealerships, and so on.

Two highlights of the day. First, we crossed the Appalachian Trail in Troutville. We cross the trail back on Day 5 on Virginia Route 7 east of Winchester. Every day of walking down the roadside I gain more respect for the people who hike the trail. The difficulty of the trail over what we are doing must be ten-fold.

I put this photo and another photo on the Troutville, Virginia page on Wikipedia.

The other small highlight was Kelly’s Real Deals on the side of the road. Any place with a steer’s head sticking out of the wall is okay with me.