Day
21 Monday August 21, 2017 Today was Eclipse Day but we had almost no
effect here as we were too far from the eclipse path. We didn't even
leave the park today except to walk across the street to look at the
New River and the geese that graze on the grass along the river. I
washed the bugs off the windshield and the front of the motor home
and we did some reading.
Day
22 Tuesday August 22, 2017 We were lazy today. About all we did was
take a morning walk round part of the town and relax and read. Lena
did some rock painting so she can place some of them around this area
while we are here. There is a painted rock craze going on around the
country where you paint a message or scene on a small rock and then
place it where it is fairly easy to find. Then if you find one most
people take a photo of it and post it on one of the Facebook Rock
groups. She has found a couple in this area and placed several.
Day
23 Wednesday August 23, 2017 We took a leisurely drive along some of
the back roads in the area this morning. We did the same drive last
year when we were here. The route we took was given to us by Tom, the
owner of the campground. It is beautiful now but would we even more
so in the Fall when the leaves put on their Fall colors. We stopped
in Independence for lunch at the local Mexican restaurant. We met a
couple this evening here in the park from Wilmington NC about 50
miles from our home.
Day
24 Thursday August 24, 2017 We drove to the Fox's Cone & Coffee
shop in Galax for a Latte and Cinnamon Roll this morning before
picking up some groceries. About 6:30PM we walked up Main Street to
the Historic Fries Theater for their Thursday night music jam where a
dozen or so local musician sit around in a circle and play music
while several people do flat foot dancing.
Day
25 Friday August 25, 2017 We drove several miles through some really
pretty back roads to ride another section of the New River Trail. The
trail is a 57 mile trail that was a bed of a former railroad track.
We have ridden several parts of this trail in prior years. Today we
road from Austinville to Foster Falls, which was 10.5 miles round
trip. The trail runs along the New River and is almost perfectly flat
and mostly shaded. There are benches about every mile and a porta
potty about every 2-3 miles and a few picnic tables. At Foster Falls
you can rent canoes and kayaks and they have a small campground,
picnic tables and a small boat launch. Today was a perfect day for a
bicycle ride, mid 70's. There was a canopy set up near Shot Tower
where a young man from Ameri Corp had several skins from animals in
the area. Everything from skunks to black bear. He explained several
facts about the animals. The state of Virginia has done a really good
job with this trail/park. It is used by bicyclist, walkers, joggers
and people riding horse back.
Foster
Falls was once a small town and there are still several buildings
there including a large building that was formally used as a hotel,
commissary, post office and boarding house for the employees of the
local Foster Falls Mining and Manufacturing Co. Then it was used as a
industrial school for girls before becoming an orphanage for boys and
girls before finally closing in 1960.
At
the part of the trail called Shot Tower there is in fact a 75' tower
that was once used to make lead shot for hunters, traders and
merchants. It took about 7 years to build and was completed in 1807.
It is only one of three in the United States and may be the only one
of this design in the world. There is a 75 shaft in the ground below
the above ground tower, The hot lead was poured through a sieve and
then fell 150 feet into a large tub of water to form the lead shot.
The lead was mined locally.
After
we returned to the RV park we went back to the Fries Theater to hear
the Mountain Park Old Time Band. We didn't realize this was the same
band we heard earlier in the month at the Rex Theater in Galax. We
stayed about an hour and a half before returning to the RV park for
the night.
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