What I'm reading today

 

Today's Bible Reading

Jeremiah 7-9

 

Other than that, I will be mostly reading traffic signs today. We're headed to Greeneville, TN, and then on to Pigeon Forge. It should be an enjoyable week with lots and lots of photography. What could be better?

Entrance to the Black Water Creek Trail

Yesterday my son wanted to go bike riding together. I don't often get to ride bikes with him because I tend to work pretty late in the day and by the time I'm able to spend time with him it's a little too late to go somewhere to ride bikes. And there's just not enough area around our house that keeps us away from major roads. So I don't like to just take the bikes out and go for a ride.

But the Black Water Creek Trail is not more than a couple miles from our house. So it's quite easy to just load up the bikes onto the back of Suzie-Annie (that's David's name for my Dodge Intrepid) and go to the Trail.

Another family taking a break on the trail

So yesterday we did that. At about 4:00 we loaded the bikes up onto Suzie-Annie and headed to the trail. Because I have a new backpack designed to hold a camera, I grabbed that too. The Black Water Creek Trail is gorgeous—no matter what time of year it is and pretty much all day. I haven't been there at night, but I bet it's beautiful then too. But since we usually ride bikes on the Trail, I have not taken my camera before, except for one time when we walked the Trail instead of riding it.

The Black Water Creek Trail is a 5+ mile stretch of converted railroad track. It is part of a railroad line that is being converted to walking/biking trails between the Peaks of Otter (near Lynchburg) and Virginia Beach. Eventually it will be a 200-mile-long trail with picnic and camping areas dotting the length of the trail. That's going to be great. But for now it is still a wonderful trail to ride between our house and downtown Lynchburg.

There are benches donated to the trail by Dasani (the bottled water people) along the way for the walkers and a few bikers to stop and take breaks at. In the photo to the left you can see my bike leaned up against one of these benches. The trail goes under this fantastic railroad bridge and yesterday when we stopped to take some pictures of the bridge a very long train passed overhead. David was ecstatic. He has always loved trains and I have to admit—it was really cool standing 80 feet under the train as it passed overhead.

Because the trail is a converted railroad track and because Lynchburg is a city in the mountains, part of the trail has been hewn out of solid rock. The trail goes through this tunnel about halfway between our house and downtown Lynchburg. It's always fascinating to enter this tunnel on a warm day because the temperature drops dramatically as soon as you get a few feet into the tunnel. David loves the sensation. There's a lot of dripping on the walls and the tunnel curves so when you're in the middle of the tunnel you can't see either of the ends of the tunnel. That would make it kind of creepy if it weren't for the fact that when they converted the trail they ran electric wires and mounted lights on the top of the tunnel. It's still a little darker than outside and has a very different sound (lots of echo), so David really loves going through it.

Black Water Creek Trail Tunnel

I've posted quite a few of what I've called the "I love Lynchburg" posts. And this is one of those things that I love about Lynchburg. In fact, I've written about the Black Water Creek Trail before. But something that really strikes me on this trail is that the people are friendly and polite. Yesterday we met seven dogs as they and their masters were going for walks. Each person stopped and let David meet their dog. we also saw two cottontail rabbits, who we are sure are relatives of our rabbit, Roger.

If you add the super-long train that we saw on the bridge to the delightful people and animals we saw, you just have a fantastic outing. A perfect was to start our week of vacation.