Another blog about Mt. Rogers

Note to self and my blog-readers: Run the Damascathon, that is, run from Damascus. Bypass the God-forsaken town and head straight to Wilburn Ridge and Mt. Rogers. The gateway mountain town of Damascus is not as friendly as advertised by Southern Living magazine. P and I spent the weekend there and as more time passed, our disenchancement grew. First of all, it was 40 degrees and windy all weekend and nobody turned the heat on indoors. Nobody there likes dogs and if you walk on someone's property, the owner will stalk you and harrass you like you were caught breaking in a window to steal the family jewels. Everyone else has plastered their property with NO DOGS ON PREMISES signs. You can't find a TV which usually I would think is wonderful in a mountain town but when you are with one of the biggest Hokie fans ever, you gotta have a TV in town for the NCAA tournament. Heck, it is southwest VA afterall, everyone wants Hokie basketball. Funny story: we find a TV in Damascus at the cafe. The Hokie game was scheduled to come on Sunday at 2:45 so we arrive early, order lunch, hang out in the cafe in anticipation for the in-progress game (UT-UVA) to wrap up. Without warning, the owner of the cafe shuts the TV off at 3:00pm. "We're closed." P is stoic, his mouth clenches, our eyes meet, he looks unpredictable. Basically he stayed in town Saturday night just to watch this game. I act fast. With no other TVs in Damascus, I hustle P and one of his trail buddies in the car, and we make the mad dash to Abingdon (about 15 minutes West). Abingdon has not been subject to sprawl therefore there are no Outback Steakhouses, and we're on the rural fringe so there are no River Mill-esque bars either. Being the clever Girl Scout that I am, I roll into the Days Inn and ask the receptionist if I can pay her a little money to rent a room for a couple of hours to spend with two handsome fellas (to watch the VT game, duh!). She is thinking, you go girl, and says "Okay, twelve dollars for two hours". I save the day, temporarily. When we finally get into the room, the game has been on for nearly 25 minutes but in basketball TV land only 10 minutes of basketball has actually been played. P frantically turns the TV to CBS. What do you know, the VT game is not being shown. We suffer through the UNLV-Wisconsin game. On the bright side, it was worth twelve bucks for the three of us to drink lots of Days Inn coffee and thaw out under full blast heat. P and I cuddled and we kept it G-rated, of course, evenwhile Sputnik was konked out and snoring on the bed next to us. For those of you still paying attention and wondering, P and I are "dating", err, we are "together". It is hard to put into words what we are since he is on foot now until mid-summer and then off to the Burg in the fall. As P says though, one day at a time and we'll see what happens. P has also been known to say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Well, here goes another round at our relationship!!!!!! And because I have the uncanny ability to selectively apply wisdom to only some arenas in my life, next time I will run the Damascathon right to Wilburn, Rogers, and Whitetop without a cold and unfriendly visit in D-town.