Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

I survived two visits to the dentist. Back on the road again. Ahhhhhhh.

Today we walked through Mount Sidney, Fort Defiance, Verona,  Staunton, and Folly Mills, Virginia. We covered 14 miles. The weather was great again: 52 degrees F this morning and 72 degrees this afternoon. Rain is forecast for the next two days, so we shall see what happens.

Mount Sidney is a really small main street town. There are houses right on the edge of Route 11, but nothing notable.

Fort Defiance is a wide spot in the road. There was one small grocery store, and a traffic light so that buses could turn off Route 11 and go to Fort Defiance High School. The only sight of the high school was a graffiti wall that was well decorated.

I like things like graffiti walls. Give the kids a place to be kids.

South of the Fort Defiance wide spot in the road was the pleasant surprise of the day – actually two surprises.

First is the Augusta Stone Church (officially the Augusta Stone Presbyterian Church). This was built in 1747. That means it is about 30 years older than America! That impresses me. It was used as a fort briefly during the war – the French and Indian War. I don’t remember when that war was fought, but I’m pretty sure it was a while before that little exercise known as the American Revolution. Here is my photo of the church.

Next door to the Augusta Stone Church were these large stone buildings known as the Augusta Military Academy. This was founded in 1874 and operated until 1984. This academy graduated about 7,000 men during its lifetime. Here is a photo of one of the buildings. The place is now owned by a local Pentecostal Church.

If I had researched everything thoroughly, I wouldn’t be so surprised to find places like these. I am happier to stumble upon them and learn while walking. I can think of detriments to this approach, but whatever.

What I like is that within a half mile I found a graffiti wall and two old buildings that have some import in American history. This is great!

Verona was the big disappointment of the day. It is two miles of four-lane road lined with car dealerships, tractor supplies, and fast food restaurants. To me, these parts of towns are boring and all of Verona was boring. It is an excellent example of the Curse of the Golden Mile.

The last city of the day was Staunton. I highly recommend spending time in historic downtown. They have done much work in keeping the area alive with businesses instead of abandoned buildings. I had coffee in place called “Bug Shots.” I don’t understand the name. The young lady behind the counter told me that they used to be part of a chain of coffee shops (wouldn’t tell me which one), but they are now independent. They are on the corner of S New St and E Johnson St. Nice place.

Much later I got the meaning of the name “Bug Shots.” The “Shots” is from shots of coffee. “Bugs” I still don’t understand, but hey, I got half of it.

Here is a photo of the St Francis Assisi Catholic Church in Staunton. I include it here as we have not seen any big, classic Catholic churches on Route 11. This is the first one.

The last stop of the day was at a wide spot in the road called Folly Mills. No Wikipedia page for this place. The final pleasant surprise was this small stone church building from 1924. I know that this isn’t even 100 years old, but look at it. This is a classic chapel made completely of stone. Who built this? It is officially called the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church.

by Dwayne Phillips

Note: I’m visiting the dentist later this morning. I believe he is going to do some major work. Ouch! So, here is another odd essay about taking a walk.

The late Charles Kuralt did his “On the Road” pieces for CBS News for 20+ years. I loved those as a kid. One of the things he always said was:

Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything.

That is one reason I am on U.S. Route 11. After ten days on the road, I add one thing to Kuralt’s statement:

You observe much more walking than you do driving.

I would not have believed this had I not experienced it myself. Sometimes Karen and I drive a section of road before we walk it. I am amazed at what I notice walking that I missed while driving.

For example, last week we took an evening drive to see Bridgewater College (south of Harrisonburg, Virginia but three miles off Route 11). We walked the same section of Route 11 the next morning. Route 11 split into a four-lane divided highway for that section. Neither of us had noticed the split the evening before. How can you not notice a two-lane road splitting into a four-lane road?

The list of examples goes on and on, and I won’t bore you with them. You see things from different angles, you can stop and soak it in, you hear things, and yes in rural farm land you smell things while walking that you never smell while driving.

I wish that you take a day, even half a day, and walk roads that you have driven thousands of times. What you observe may surprise you.

by Dwayne Phillips

Note: We are back home this weekend. I went to the dentist on Monday and will go back again on Tuesday. Now we hope to be walking again on Wednesday the 24th. While not walking, I will fill my days with a few essays on topics that come to me while walking.

I walk on the left side of the road facing traffic. The road slopes from the center off tot he side. As I walk, the ground beneath my left leg is an inch or two lower than the ground beneath my right leg.

At first I thought this little difference wouldn’t matter. I was wrong. I found myself limping during the afternoon miles trying to compensate for this difference. The outside of my left ankle hurt as the constant leaning puts pressure there.

If my left leg were an inch longer, I would be fine. I could keep my body level while walking on the sloping ground. I suppose I could find some special shoes with really tall soles on the left shoe. Maybe not.

by Dwayne Phillips

Today we walked from the southern end of Harrisonburg through the town of Mt Crawford and then Burketown. This was another cool day that started at 50 degrees F and ended at 70. It was also a short day as we stopped walking at noon after nine miles and then drove back to our home in Reston for the weekend.

Mt Crawford surprised me. For one thing it is spelled “Mount Crawford” on the Wikipedia page. On the map, it is only a wide spot in the road, but it is a real town. Here is a picture of some of the houses on Main Street or U.S. Route 11. This is what is meant by a “Main Street” town in Virginia. The houses are sometimes inches off the highway.

The treat of the day was watching 10 or 11 year old kids playing flag football at the park in Mt Crawford. I like this as I played flag football at that age. It has much benefit over “tackle” football with all the expensive equipment and advantage of larger kids over smaller ones.

Here is a photo of the most picturesque church building in Mt Crawford. If you look closely, you will see that the name on the sign out front doesn’t match the name in the stained glass over the front door. That is often the case in these towns.

And yes, as promised, when we reached the southern end of Rockingham County on highway 11, there was the other turkey statue. I read the plaques on this statue (I didn’t notice them on the northern one). The statues were put in place in 1955 and then restored in 1995. I like that; I like the idea of restoring statues and having pride in the local products.

Burketown was literally a wide spot in the road. There was one house that had a sign out front “Burketown Inn 1865,” but I didn’t see any signs of life.

No walking on Sunday. Probably no walking on Monday as I visit the dentist. Oh boy, cannot wait.

I added the photos on Sunday the 21st.

by Dwayne Phillips

Today was overcast and cool – 53 to 66 degrees F. Perfect for walking. We covered 14 miles of mostly rural and then all city. We went through the wide places in the road of Mauzy, Lacey Spring (not springs), and Melrose before walking through Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Mauzy has a general store that wasn’t open. Melrose has a gas station where we sat on a picnic table outside and drank a cup of coffee (only 61 cents if anyone from Starbucks is reading this!). Lacey Spring has a United States Post Office. So it has some sort of prestige that the other places lack.

Then there is Harrisonburg. This is the biggest city since Winchester with some 40,000 residents. Harrisonburg is large enough that its downtown has some areas that have fallen on hard times and haven’t been revitalized. It isn’t quaint, and I don’t suggest walking Highway 11 end-to-end through Harrisonburg. We didn’t; we drove about a mile through the parts I wasn’t comfortable walking. Those parts are on the north side of the town’s center.

James Madison University is just to the south of the town’s center. JMU has a pleasant campus and atmosphere. It is a state university and hosts some of the kids who live in the Northern Virginia rat race and want to “get away” to attend college. I’m not sure if they want to get away from the rat race or just from their parents – maybe both. Virginia Tech is another such school, one that is 120 miles to the south on our pathway.

Farther south of JMU, Highway 11 in Harrisonburg is just a long and busy street with businesses. All the car dealerships in Rockingham County seem to be here.

Feathers on the side of the road? Oh, yes. North of Harrisonburg we walked ten rural miles. This is the turkey capitol of the U.S. (remember the statue of the turkey yesterday?). Now and then we would see white feathers on both sides of the road. They looked too big for chicken feathers, so my guess is that they are turkey feathers.

Well, not a big sight to see, but it appears that now and then these turkey-hauling trucks encounter something that riles the turkeys and throws some feathers.

A note on health – I never knew that the human body had so many parts that could hurt from walking.

Equipment – add this to the list of essential items: a safety pin for puncturing blisters so the liquid can ooze out. That sounds worse than it is. I strongly advise doing this to blisters a soon as they blister. Even in the middle of the day is a good time for this.

PHOTOS OF BLISTERS WILL NOT BE SHOWN IN THIS BLOG

by Dwayne Phillips

Today we walked through Mt Jackson and New Market, Virginia. We covered 15 miles. The weather was in the mid-50s in the morning and the mid-80s in the afternoon. Still quite pleasant.

Most of the day was out in rural areas. Highway 11 is by no means desolate. We are always in sight of a farm house or a business on the highway. But there are times when towns are several hours walk apart.

Mt Jackson is so small that it doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. I am surprised as the town is fairly large. What differentiates it from the other towns we have seen so far is that it is a railroad town. Railroad tracks run north-south through the center of town. The town itself stretches a long way north-south.

The first prize of the day was this bridge crossing the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. It is rare to find this type of trestle bridge these days as most have been replaced by the bland concrete overpass.

The next find of the day (actually found it last night) is the Southern Kitchen in New Market. The Southern Kitchen is a fine example of a mid-twentieth century style restaurant. It comes complete with a nightly special. I had the Wednesday-night special of all you can eat fried chicken wings. A good meal, one you won’t find at a national chain restaurant.

One side note – many of the businesses in these towns are open Thursday through Sunday. Those are the days that people escape the rat race of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area and come out to the countryside. They must wander up and down the streets of these small towns on the weekend. Good for the small towns – take all the big-city money you can get. Believe me, it is almost impossible to find a hotel room on Highway 11 or Interstate 81 on the weekends. This holds for the entire length of these roads down to the Tennessee border. This is crazy, but true. Ask anyone (like me) who has been burned out here on a weekend desperately seeking a hotel room of any type.

The prize of the day is a statue of a turkey – yes a turkey. See the photo! This is inside Rockingham County. Rockingham County is the turkey capital of the U.S. I have seen news reports that a live turkey enters one of Rockingham’s processing plants and departs a frozen turkey on the way to a supermarket one hour later. There are turkey farms everywhere and turkey processing plants here and there in the county.

I looked at the Wikipedia page for Rockingham County and found this under “Points of Interest:”

Two Turkey statues, one at either end of Route 11 signal that you are in the “Turkey Capital.” Rockingham county is the leader of Virgina in poultry production.

There is another one of these “statues” on the south end of the county. I cannot wait to get down there.

Can you imagine being a sculptor and someone coming to you wanting you to make a turkey statue? Hey, its a paycheck.

But why aren’t these things in a town square somewhere? Why on Highway 11?

by Dwayne Phillips

Two more notes for September 17th.

The best sign I have seen on a front porch was from some town yesterday (cannot remember which).

In

1897

nothing happened here

We spent the night in a motel in New Market, Virginia. We are in our late 40s. I think we are 30 years younger than the average guest here this evening.

by Dwayne Phillips

Today we walked through Toms Brook, Maurertown, Woodstock, and Edinburg, Virginia. We covered 16.5 miles (a new record). The weather was 55 degrees F in the morning and in the high 70s in the afternoon. Great weather.

These are all “main street” towns in that Highway 11 becomes Main Street as it passes through. Toms Brook is a nice place, typical of most on the highway. I put a photo of the St Peters Lutheran Church in the Wikipedia page for Toms Brook. In case you wonder why I usually have a photo of a church in these towns, the answer is simple. The old churches in these places are the most notable landmark. They are often one of the older buildings in town and almost always one of the better maintained buildings.

Maurertown is so small that it doesn’t even have a page in Wikipedia. I don’t have much to write about Maurertown except that it was on the highway and we walked through it.

We spent about an hour and a half passing through Woodstock. We stopped for coffee at the Woodstock Cafe and Shoppes in historic downtown. All these towns have a “historic downtown” in them. We were almost run over by a small construction tractor in Woodstock. They have literally destroyed a section of Main Street in front of the courthouse (hence no photo of the historic county courthouse) and this coffee and sundries shop is across the street (get the lawyers on their way out of court). Here is a photo of the Woodstock Cafe and Shoppes.

I put a copy of this photo in the Wikipedia page for Woodstock. Maybe I could write to the owners of the shop and get a refund for the cup of coffee I bought in exhange for…

We ate our lunch in front of the football stadium of the Massanutten Military Academy. Karen asked if I wanted to take a photo of this place, but I shrugged it off. It is really famous (Tom Cruise once shot a movie here when he was young enough to play a psycopath in a high school in a military academy), so surely there were photos of it everywhere. I was wrong.

An hour’s walk down the road we passed through Edinburg. There were several small coffee and tea shops in town, but we passed on them and instead drove to a Subway sandwich place closer to I-81. We sat, drank a root beer, and ate a Twix Ice Cream bar. Sometimes you pass on the culture in favor of better air conditioning and a bench that you can stretch your feet on. I put a photo of the Edinburg Mill in Edinburg’s Wikipedia page.

The highlight of Edinburg was the countryside south of town. This is the definition of Shenandoah farm land. Jimmy Stewart made a movie here once. All kidding aside, this is beautiful. It is one of the rare places so far that has a view of both walls of the Shenandoah Valley as well as of the Shenandoah River.

The Curse of the Golden Mile? Okay, years ago in Louisiana, we called the mile or so stretch of road between a town and the Interstate Highway (if you had an exit at your town) as the Golden Mile. Businesses sprang from the farm land. Everything is a national chain (McDonald’s, Exxon, Wendy’s, BP). This stretch of road becomes the new center of town.

In one way, the Golden Mile is a blessing. Local people find jobs here. People from out of town exit the Interstate and leave their money in your town. That is a good thing for the economics of the town.

The curse of the Golden Mile is that the economic prosperity brings houses and such popping out of the ground all along the traditional highway – like highway 11. Woodstock is cursed by its Golden Mile. What was once a nice little town, now stretches for five miles up and down highway 11. It is awful to walk through it.

I view this as a tourist, not a local. Some of the locals will gladly take the blight as long as their children get local jobs and don’t move away.

And Woodstock has the Double Curse of the Golden Mile – a Wal Mart SuperCenter that is open 24 hours a day. As we were walking through Woodstock Karen asked, “Where do these people buy groceries?” Simple, at the Wal Mart SuperCenter. That is where they buy almost everything except services.

As you can tell, I am conflicted on this one. I am all for free markets, and I love the Main Street in a small town. Some of the towns on Highway 11 have balanced this well (Stephens City and Middletown, Virginia are two examples). Woodstock’s attempt – not to my liking.

And my feet are killing me tonight. I may have to buy a completely different type of shoe.

by Dwayne Phillips

We walked through Stephens City, Middletown, and Strasburg, Virginia. This was another 15-mile day with fine weather – mostly cloudy with the temperature starting at 63 degrees and ending at 75 degrees F.

Stephens City ends the clutter of Winchester. Once out of Stephens, you are in rural Virginia. I liked that. Stephens City has old houses that are about to fall down, and then older houses that have been renovated. The town was founded in 1758 – that makes it 18 years older than America. I don’t comprehend such. There are a bunch of townhouses at the south end of town – rats, they are not safe from those things even out here.

Most of the businesses in Stephens City were called Newtown this and Newtown that. I read a few of the historical markers along the road. Towards the end of the Civil War there was a lot of local trouble in the area. Several Union officers were ordered to burn the town. Some residents saved their houses by proclaiming loyalty to the Union. Several residents saved their houses by proclaiming that they would hang Union POWs in retaliation. The Union officers spared the town. I imagine there was some bad blood among the residents who used differing tactics to save their houses. The name change in the town probably came from the resulting discussions after the (official) cease of hostilities.

The find of the day is a two-screen drive-in theater south of Stephens City. Here’s a photo. The sign out front reads “CLOSED,” but I think that only means closed for the season. The place is in operating condition and immaculate. This is great. A drive-in theater next to a town that is … forget the math, a town that is really old.

The best town of the day was Middletown. Lord Fairfax Community College is on the north end of town. I thought that would be it for Middletown (boring), but I was wrong. The town is almost as big as Stephens City, and it doesn’t have any townhouses! It does have the Wayside Inn (1797 – ha, not even as old as America). This Inn claims to be the oldest operating Motor Hotel in America. That claim is probably true. I put a photo of the Wayside Inn on the Wikipedia page for Middletown.

South of Middletown is a huge house called “Monte Vista” (1883). That is not even in the same century as 1776, but still quite an impressive place.

The biggest disappointment of the day was Strasburg. I am not sure why it was disappointing. Perhaps because I had cramps while walking through town (too much dairy in my coffee at breakfast. I will have to watch that one). Really, the town wasn’t impressive for some reason.

The toughest part of the day was the climb out of Strasburg. South of town was a fork of the Shenandoah River. This is great bottom land full of crops. I really enjoyed walking past the fields and listening to tunes on my iPod. Then I hit the hill. I walked up hill for 20 minutes. Checking the terrain maps on Google, I estimate I climbed 400 feet. I was tired.

Here is a quick display of our progress so far from Reston to about Toms Brook:

by Dwayne Phillips

Ah, we begin in earnest. I am braving peril by not going to the dentist this week. I was able to get an appointment with another dentist for next Monday. That will reduce the walking, but is the best I could hope for.

I believe we walked 15 miles today. That is farther than I hoped to do. I trust that we will both feel well tomorrow and will be able to have another good day.

Harsh winds this morning on Route 7 between Berryville and Winchester. The winds and the traffic, especially the semi-trailers, blew my hat everywhere. I used the string to choke myself and keep the hat on my head.

We had a little rain – literally one minute of it. I was glad that is passed through so quickly.

East of Winchester were several Hispanic restaurants. I wasn’t surprised at this. There are thousands of Hispanic immigrants working in construction in the Washington D.C. area. I had heard that many lived as far west as Winchester.

I also found this old ice cream and hamburger place. Why do they sell frozen custard and frozen yogurt at these places? Ice cream is much better.

We walked through Winchester. This is a small city, and the roads cut back and forth downtown one way this way and that. We managed to navigate and accidentally found the highlight of the day – The Handley Library.

Here is Karen sitting in front of the building, and a photo of the building itself. This place is fantastic. It is an historical site and a functioning library. I have been to Oxford, England and tried to visit the libraries there. I couldn’t enter.

We walked through this library and climbed the spiral staircases up to the top level. Everything is immaculate. It compares to the Jefferson Building in the Library of Congress. The scale does not compare, but the elegance and function do.

I am surprised that Wikipedia does not have a page on the Handley. The only page of tribute that I could on it is this one. As a functioning library, Handley does have their working page here. What a shame.

After navigating the one way streets, we proceeded down U.S. Route 11. It was good to be on Route 11.

South of Winchester on Route 11 were several Indian and Thai restaurants. I am not sure of the ethnic mixture in Winchester itself, but the restaurants offered much more than ham and mashed potatoes.

The day ended at the northern end of Stephens City. We’ll walk through there in the morning a report on that tomorrow.