Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

I still cannot find it. I know I saw it early in the walk, so it must be in the northern section of the Shenandoah Valley. It seems like it was north of Harrisonburg, Virginia. I went looking for it one day, but I didn’t find it.

It still haunts me.

It was on the east side of Route 11, my right as I was walking north to south. I recall stones set into at least one wall. Beige and tan stones running vertically. Those were all nice features, but that wasn’t it. That wasn’t what haunts me.

It had the shape – the protruding point of a Vauban star or “star  fort” design. The outermost part of the point was covered with stone. The rest of the point was glass – glass floor to ceiling. I had to imagine what was inside, but

I see in my mind a cash register of a general store and restaurant. The register would be inside the building at the tip of the point. If a person stood in front of the cash register, in view of the windows, that person could easily see  Route 11 in both directions. That is the beauty of the Vauban design – the points of the stars. They permit seeing in all directions. I had never seen the star used this way, with siding and windows.

It was brilliant. Someone who knew what they were doing designed it.

That is what burned in my mind – the brilliance, the this-doesn’t-really-belong-here brilliance of the designer. Who was the designer? Why did the designer put this here? When? How?

If only I could find it again. I would stop and study it. I would photograph it dozens of times. I would learn the answers to my questions.

Alas, I have lost it – for new. Perhaps one day I will have the time to search until I find it again – a lost place.

by Dwayne Phillips

It was in the early afternoon on a sunny day in Southern Virginia. I was walking through a construction area on Route 11. There were flagmen and the usual slow downs and stops in traffic. That is quite annoying while walking. A regular flow of traffic is much more relaxing.

I thought I had passed the through the construction area with its accompanying slow down of cars when I noticed a vehicle approaching me. It too slowed as it approached me. I couldn’t see anyone in the vehicle as the sun turned its windshield into an opaque sheet of bright glare. Just as the vehicle passed me I heard what sounded like a voice blurting something from the lowered passenger window. I couldn’t understand the blurb and quickly forgot about it as I continued to walk.

A moment later the same vehicle drove in my direction, pulled alongside me, and the passenger started talking to me across the driver. I looked over to see a friend talking to me; it was Jim and his wife Nadine. He had been following my walk on my blog. They had been to Tennessee for a week visiting relatives and were on their back to Northern Virginia.

They drove up a few yards to a place where they could pull off the road. The two of them stepped out of the car and spoke with me a few moments. My wife Karen came walking to us from the south (she had parked the car and was walking back towards me – yet another story of logistics).

The four of us spoke for maybe five minutes and took a couple of photos standing next to a barbed wire fence looking at a pasture of cows. They uncomfortably returned to their car and drove north. I mean, they were really uncomfortable about driving away with my wife and I standing on the side of the road. You don’t just drive off leaving people on the side of the road, do you? Then again, you don’t often run into a friend who is taking a walk down an 1,100-mile route.

I cannot express how much of an emotional lift it was to meet a friend out in the middle of no where on the road. Jim and Nadine went to the trouble of exiting the interstate and driving up a slow road on the chance of meeting us. This was one of the highlights of the entire trip for me.

by Dwayne Phillips

It was a hot, sunny day in Northern Alabama. I was walking along in the late morning, soaked as usual with perspiration caused by the heat and humidity. There was a little house to the left. I guess it had a bedroom or two with maybe 500 square feet of living area. It was a light brown color and had a porch across its meager front. Next to it was a gray building of perhaps 20,000 square feet.

That is right, my guess of 20,000 square feet. The gray building was at least 200 feet long and about 100 feet deep. It was only one story tall with a slightly pitched roof.

This building had one regular door – the kind that you have on the front of your house that allows one person at a time. There were no windows. There were no signs anywhere indicating that this was a warehouse or a factory or a mini-storage or anything of the sort.

It was inexplicable – no explanation. For all I know Osama Bin-Laden’s brother lived in there with Salmon Rushdie and Elvis.

A year earlier shortly after noon I was walking in Southern Virginia. Rising out of a large, flattened (by tractors) field was what looked like an airplane hanger. It had a giant semi-circular frame like a quonset hut. It’s “roof” was a brilliant blue fabric stretched over the frame. There was nothing inside this  giant  blue quonset hut. No explanation; it was just sitting there in the middle of a field.

I saw several such buildings while taking a walk. They were

• too big
• too small
• the wrong color
• made of the wrong materials
• or had any number of other characteristics that simply didn’t fit

Perhaps I have spent too many years living near Washington D.C. Perhaps I have worked on  too many strange engineering projects. Perhaps my mind wonders and wanders too much when I walk all day in the sun. But there they were, these inexplicable buildings.

by Dwayne Phillips

We were in Wytheville, Virginia (pronounced with-ville or as the young woman in the motel lobby said “wee-ith-vee-ill”).  Our motel was tucked in an odd corner of a street just off Route 11 and Interstate 81. Sort of around the corner next to a traffic light was this little Mexican Restaurant called El Peurto.

It was great.

This wasn’t the classic hole-in-the-wall place. It was of good size, well kept, and there were a number of people in there at five in the evening. I guess I didn’t expect much from a Mexican place in a town called Wee-ith-vee-ill. Happily, my expectations were wrong.

I don’t remember what I ate that evening, but I remember it was good. It wasn’t just the good that comes at the end of a 16-mile walk on a day when the weather goes from fog to hot sun to threatening dark clouds. It was the good that comes from fresh ingredients, an owner who isn’t cheap in buying those ingredients, and someone in the kitchen who can cook Mexican food with zest and love.

If you are in Southern Virginia,

• take exit 73 on I-81
• head towards town
• take a quick left on Main Dr
• take a quick right of Chapman Rd

It is easy to miss as it is tucked in a corner in a little side road off a side road.

El Peurto, 715 Chapman Rd, Wytheville, VA? – (276) 228-3159

by Dwayne Phillips

I was just inside Georgia heading into Alabama. The name of the town was Rising Fawn, Georgia. A wonderful name. I had parked at a large church building and started walking my bicycle south through the town towards Alabama. On the far side of the road was what looked like a small restaurant named “The Depot Diner.” I didn’t see any railroad tracks, so I hadn’t a clue as to why it was called a depot, but whatever.

Two hours later I returned to the church parking lot. I had walked five miles and ridden my bicycle five miles back. Into and out of Alabama. It was sunny; it was hot, and I was famished. I had not yet learned how to judge distance, time, and the nourishment required to cover the two. I went to the Depot Diner.

The Depot Diner is one of those places that looks much bigger on the inside than on the outside. I think it was about 11:15 when I entered and sat. There were maybe five people present ahead of me eating. I ordered one of the daily specials: fried chicken, three vegetables, a roll, and a desert. $12 and well worth it.

I loved the food. I loved the “sweet” iced tea. I loved the chance to sit for half an hour and refresh myself in the coolness of the place.

I wasn’t the only one who liked the food at the Depot Diner. Thirty or forty people came in while I was eating. I had to look about to find where they were all sitting. It was much bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside.

According to the photos on the wall, a railroad once ran alongside this place. This building was the train depot for this town. I couldn’t learn how long ago that was.

The Depot Diner was one of the memorable stops on the walk. It refreshed me, body and soul.

by Dwayne Phillips

As a subset of these stories, I will write a few short stories about great meals I had while taking a walk.

It was a Sunday afternoon in Ellisville, Mississippi. I was visiting with my older brother, his wife, and daughter. After attending church services with them, we went for lunch at the Jones County Junior College.

My brother’s wife teaches Nursing at the Jones County Junior College. His daughter attends there. His son used to attend there. The junior college is a center of the community. There are dormitories at this junior college. Most of the students go home on Friday evening and return on Sunday evening. The cafeteria is closed on Saturday, but reopens each Sunday for the mid-day and evening meals.

A couple of hundred people joined us for lunch at the cafeteria on Sunday after church.

There are restaurants in Ellisville – at least a dozen of them. Still, a few hundred people eat lunch at the junior college cafeteria. One visit on a Sunday will tell you why:

The food is excellent.

There are several lines serving different kinds of food. I stood in the line that served roast beef and potatoes. The gentlemen serving me covered my plate with a single slice of roast beef (that is a big slice folks). Then he put a few small potatoes on the roast beef and then a large spoon of gravy on the whole thing.

I loved it.

I also had some salad from the salad bar and a piece or two of pizza from the pizza bar. I don’t know what they served in the other lines. I didn’t have the capacity to sample them.

It was one of the best meals I had while walking. The price was under $10 per adult.

One word of caution – they don’t take credit cards here. Just cash or checks.

by Dwayne Phillips

I was walking though Trussville, Alabama – a northern suburb of Birmingham. It was a weekday afternoon, sunny, hot, and lots of vehicles on the road. Oh, if there were only a sidewalk.

Well, there wasn’t a sidewalk. I was pushing my bicycle while walking on the edge of the road. It seemed as if everyone in Alabama was shopping here. Traffic made the afternoon just plain awful. Every now and then there was a break in traffic due to a traffic light, but that was only momentary.

Did I mention that it was hot? Did I mention that it was sunny? It was hot and sunny.

To catch a break, I exited Route 11 and went up a hill to a giant shopping center. It was one of those places that has a Best Buy and a hundred and one other stores all in a row. The parking lot was big enough to hold ten thousand cars (well, maybe not that many, but you get the picture).

I had ascended into heaven. I walked freely in the parking lot without worry of being hit for ten minutes. I wished the parking lot was ten miles long. The big things that I noticed,

the temperature in the parking lot was at least ten degrees cooler than on the road

and

the glare of the sun was half as much as on the road

As I thought about this, I remembered noticing this in a few other place on the walk. Off the road in a heavy traffic area was much cooler than on the road. Until I experienced it, I wouldn’t have believed it.

Cars generate a lot of heat. Those engines churn and grind and pump and all that creates heat that dissipates into the air surrounding the cars. And then there are the tires. Those black rubber circles pulling against the friction of the road also dissipate heat into the air.

And then there is the reflection of the sun. Have you ever noticed how shiny cars are? Cars have great paint jobs that shine in the sun. And the windshields. They block much of the sun’s rays away from the eyes of the driver. That blocking, however, reflects it out onto the road. All that shining and reflection goes right into the eyes of anyone who is walking into the flow of traffic. All that reflection multiplies the rays of the sun and the amount of burning on the skin on the face.

Ahhh, the parking lot. Especially a big parking lot where I don’t have to hop the curbs every ten steps.

And a few sidewalks in the suburbs would be nice.

by Dwayne Phillips

TDY (government acronym for temporary duty).

It was 1980, I was 21 and just out of college. I went TDY for 78 days. That was 78 days and nights living in housing supplied by the government. Maybe three for four nights in motels, the rest in strange places on military bases and such. Throw in a couple dozen airplane flights.

I liked it. I spent the the next three years renting a bedroom in a lady’s house. I was only there five months a year and TDY the other seven. It suited my personality. I could sit in a room reading, writing, studying, and entertaining myself.

Fast forward to 2008 and the first phase of taking a walk. My wife was with me. For much of the first 500 miles we were within commuting distance of our house. The weekly routine:

• Monday 6 AM, leave our house, drive to where we were to start walking
• walk five or six hours on Monday
• walk all day Tuesday through Thursday
• Friday, walk until about 2 PM, drive back to our house

My wife loves to cook and have our three sons and one daughter-in-law over on Sunday for lunch. This routine gave her Saturday to prepare for Sunday.

As we walked farther from home, we changed the schedule and went to a two-week cycle. This meant spending a weekend in a motel. We walked all day Friday and Saturday, rested on Sunday, and walked all day Monday.

This suited me fine as it was a two-week TDY. Simple.

This didn’t work well for my wife. She missed cooking and feeding the entire family on Sunday. We had only two such two-week cycles before our grandson was born and we stopped walking for 2008.

Walking in 2009 was different. My wife didn’t come with me as she had important matters to watch at home. I was on the road for five weeks. The first three weeks I was alone, and my older brother joined me for the last two weeks.

I was back in 1980 – 35 days TDY. No airplane flights, about 15 different motels, and 70-something different places to eat. This suited me; I loved it.

My back hurt the first hour of every day. I wasn’t in the same bed enough days in a row to adjust.

I made a cup of Community Coffee in the motel room every morning.

I washed my clothes in the sink every evening, hung them in the shower, and they were dry by morning.

I ate here and there on the road with the evening meal near the motel.

The three weeks I was alone, I ate at least one sandwich out of my ice chest.

Yes, I missed my wife; I missed my three sons, one daughter-in-law, and one grandson.

I loved living on the road. It was a true blessing to be able to do it. Great fun all around.

by Dwayne Phillips

It was mid-morning and I was walking through Livingston, Alabama. It was the time of day  that if I sought a diner or cafe that I would drop in for coffee and something to eat like pie or cake. I didn’t see any such diners or cafes, but off to the right a block away I saw a bakery. I couldn’t read the sign; no matter, I was going.

Inside the bakery, a group of Mennonite women were moving about busily. I ordered a cup of coffee at the counter and then started looking about for something to eat. They had a glass display case with cinnamon rolls. These were L A R G E cinnamon rolls. I ordered one, paid, and sat to eat.

The cinnamon roll was great. They had baked it that morning. It was, well how do you describe a fresh-baked cinnamon roll? It melted in my mouth. I thought about having a second one, but my conscience prevented me. I sat to let the cinnamon roll go down, sipped my coffee, and relaxed as I had walked about eight miles already that morning.

There were six or eight Mennonite women working that day. I guessed their ages from 18 to 80. Yes, up to 80. I am pretty sure the youngest women were at least 18 as it was a weekday, and those younger than 18 would be in high school at that time of day.

A dozen people came into the bakery behind me. They were eating late breakfasts of eggs, sausage, gravy, biscuits, and everything else you could eat for breakfast. Great stuff. I had second thoughts about staying and eat a second breakfast.

Some of the other customers were buying loaves of bread. I walked over to the shelves where the loaves were sitting. They had big, fresh loaves of sourdough bread. I picked up one and asked if the ladies could slice it. They could. I bought the loaf and had them run it through their bread slicer. I eagerly ate sandwiches made from that loaf until it was consumed in four or five days. Much better than anything at a regular grocery store.

I sat again to admire my loaf of bread, eat one slice of it, and finish my coffee. Several of the younger women were on their morning break. They sat in booths next to the windows, leaned back against the windows, and stretched their legs out in front of them. Nikes and Reeboks adorned their feet stretching out from under their traditional long dresses. They grinned, sighed, chatted, and flipped through the small-town newspapers that adorn small-town bakeries.

They were the same age as my youngest son. He grew up in the country club known as the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. He was in class at George Mason University at the same moment that these girls were taking a break from baking cinnamon rolls and sourdough bread. They were so different, but they were the same. Young Americans trying to find their way in a culture inherited from their parents.

After a few minutes their break ended. They started moving about quickly preparing the lunch special for the day. It took me a little while, but I finally figured that the special for the day was of all things, Taco Salad.

Only in America: small town west Alabama, Mennonite girls, fresh-baked cinnamon rolls and bread, and Taco Salad.

If you are ever in this part of Alabama, pull off the Interstate and drive through Livingston. It is a fine, small-college town. Just off Route 11 downtown you can find Mennonite’s Touch of Home Bakery. The coffee is good, the cinnamon rolls great, the sourdough bread just as good as the cinnamon rolls, and the ladies wonderful.

by Dwayne Phillips

For all but a day or two, the walking in 2009 was done in the Central Time Zone. I had a tough time switching from Eastern time to Central time (see this post). Once switched, however, I loved the Central Time zone.

Television programs that start at 8 PM Eastern time start at 7 PM Central time. Monday Night football starts at 7:30 PM. Sunday Night football starts at 7:30 PM. So what? The sun comes up about 6:30 AM, and I hit the road at 7 AM. That means turning out the lights and trying to fall asleep at 9 PM. That is an early schedule. It is nice to be able to watch a little television in the evening.

I’ve never understood why television doesn’t operate on this schedule in the Eastern Time Zone. Anyways, I loved the Central Time Zone. Maybe one day I will retire there.