Okay, the weekend is just about over and it's still hot. I have never seen such a hot summer in my life. Valda & I went to WV this weekend and visited some friends from Valda's earlier years. We saw Mr. & Mrs. Herb Eye who just celebrated their 64th anniversary. They live in a farmhouse on the farm where Mr. Eye was born. What a beautiful place they have. We had a great visit. Valda knew their daughter in Charlotte, NC when they were in their teens, and has kept in touch all these years.
The work is proceeding here in Roanoke. We both feel like we are treading water, just biding time till the walk starts. I have a feeling I'm going to get even more antsy as the start date gets closer. We are still contacting people about sponsorships. It is a painfully slow process. You can check out my new website for progress in this area. By the way, Chris got it up and running this past week, it is http://www.rickwalksamerica.com/. Click onto the site and see some of the cool things on it and especially the route map. Nothing else for now.
Not too much happening here in Virginia this week. Valda & I drove up into the mountains west of Roanoke on Saturday, to see the scenery for sure but also to beat the heat here in the valley. We drove to New Castle and then went south on Hwy 42 about 30 miles, then looped around on some US highways and ended up in Blacksburg. We drove through the Virginia Tech campus and stopped and saw the memorial they have constructed for the 32 people who were killed in April. It was move-in day and there were a lot of people in town. Today they dedicated the memorial and then we heard on TV hat there were several students who were stricken with carbon monoxide poisoning. Five girls are in really bad shape. It just doesn't seem to end for those people.Son Chris got back to Seattle. He seemed to have a real good time on his trip across the USA. We should have the website any day now. This morning we had a photographer from the Roanoke Times come by and take pictures of me walking along a local road. There is a reporter coming to see us this next Thursday for an interview. Hopefully the story will be in the paper next Saturday or Sunday. If it is like it was in Chattanooga, there will be a link on the Internet to the story. I'll keep you posted.It's less than 8 months till the start of the walk. Things are progressing, but sometimes it seems like the Dog Days are here. I think a lot of that is because it is so hot and each day seems like the one before. I wish it was 20 degrees cooler and I was in my last week of work here. Oh well, I guess it too will pass.
Wow is it hot!!! It has been over 100 degrees here most of the week, and this next week looks only slightly better. The only consolation is that most of the rest of the country is suffering through the same heat wave. Somehow it doesn't make me feel any better.
Valda & I had a weekend visit from Patricia & Mason Mosley from the Hampton, VA area. They are old SCC friends and worked with us in Birmingham a couple of years ago. We were also campground neighbors in Chattanooga 4 years ago. It was good to see them and catch up on things. We plan a trip to their area before we are done here and are anxious to go to Jamestown and Yorktown which are just down the road from their home. Can't wait.
Not much going on. Our son Chris is in Yellowstone, one of the stops on a cross country trip with friends. He should be back in Seattle this week. Daughter Syndi and husband Trace saw the Sunday round of the PGA tour event in Tulsa today. They said it was miserable hot there too, and spent a lot of the day in a sponsor's tent with A/C. They did go out and watch Tiger when he teed off on the 16th. Must be nice.
Hopefully the week upcoming will be a little easier to take than last week. It's time for my CEA blood test this week and that makes for a bit of tension around here. The cycle continues and the plans go forth. Next year at this time I hope I'm in Ohio somewhere. More later.
Valda & I went to Appomattox Court House, VA yesterday and toured the small town where Generals Lee and Grant signed the document that ended 4 years of the American Civil War. Nothing fancy, just two men who sat down and agreed to quit fighting each other. After all that had transpired, it was rather anti-climatic.
When I was standing in the actual room that this took place, I was struck by the significance of the event and the fact that I was standing in the same room 142 years later. It just seemed a little unreal to me. I got to thinking about history and how insignificant it can make you feel. I've seen the actual beds where 4 presidents have died, stood 5 feet from where FDR died while having his picture painted. Saw the gun that shot Lincoln and his blood on the pillow where he died. I actually touched Gus Grissom's Mercury capsule (I wasn't supposed to, but I did), the one that spent 40 years or so on the ocean floor. I was in the World Trade Center and walked on the roof of the South Tower just 5 months before it was destroyed. I drove over that collapsed bridge in Minneapolis last September. And, Valda & I spent a couple of hours on the aircraft carrier Lexington in Corpus Christi, TX in January of this year (there was a fire on board the Lex this past week, but the news of it got lost in the bridge story).
Thinking back to these places I've been and knowing what happened either before or after I was there is rather sobering. Two men met in a parlor of an old farmhouse in Appomattox, VA and spent a few minutes making small talk about their shared experience in the Mexican War, then sat down and ended a war that sometimes doesn't want to end. I stood there all those many years later and witnessed that event. How small I felt.
