I couldn’t sleep again, woke up early. It’s been two days since I last posted.
Something’s been on my mind, trying to figure out an option instead of coming home. It just isn’t sitting right
Roll out of bed, stretch, shower, and Cories up
Once she gets squared up I ask:
“What if on our way home we spent two nights in Roanoke and then two nights in dc? It breaks up the trip on our way home”
“I’m in”
And that was the new game plan.
So we were off to Roanoke. I called a days inn and made a reservation for two nights.
It was a good drive day, we stopped at loves to do laundry and have some lunch, an on the fly thing.
We also got some reservations canceled, I signed up for a local 12 hour race on Oct 12 a handful of days away and we rolled into days inn around 5 pm on Monday night.
We check out the room and although it wasn’t the best, it’ll do.
Unloading the car then folding my clothes from the laundry; I get this weird feeling, the area seems sketchy I guess and the room was a little more dirty then at first glance. I find a fork in the fridge, a dog bone on the floor along with some dead bugs; the bathroom looks like it wasn’t touched.
I try to ignore it. Corie squares up the car and comes back inside
“I’m gonna get hit the gym if that’s cool”
“Yeah take your time baby”
I thought at least a pull up bar would be there and I was looking forward to banging some reps out, but alas
There’s 3 treadmills and an exercise ball.
Let me just walk on the treadmill and figure out a game plan for tomorrow, we need to spend as much time out of that room as possible.
45 minutes later I have a packed fill day.
I get back to the hotel room and I can tell something is up with Corie
“I got us a GP for tomorrow”
“Lemme hear it”
- Workout walrond park for Murph
- Little green hive grandin
- Roanoke co-op for groceries
- Black Dog Salvage (they have parks right next door)
- Mill mountain park with runs at mill mountain greenway 3.3 miles/ mill mountain perimeter loop 5.6 miles
- Walmart neighborhood market for anything else we need
- Walk downtown
- screamin vegan for dinner
- Mcafee knob / cove to kill more time
Somehow it got brought up, that we could just leave tomorrow from mill mountain and continue our drive up north
“Why not just leave tonight” Corie says
“I’m 1000% in” and we start packing the car.
We weren’t stuck there and although it was getting late about 8:30 by this time and we were almost out of food, a Walmart was open till 11 about an hour away.
On the drive we realized we made a bad call staying there and if we would’ve just checked the reviews we would’ve avoided that place and figured something else out.
“That’s totally my bad, I figured since we just stayed at a days inn that it was cool and this one would be just like the last”
“Nah it’s cool it’s on both of us I could’ve checked the reviews while you were driving – we controlled what we could though and we have a $200 learning lesson”
“Let me call them and see if I can get a refund for at least the night we aren’t using”
Bam; we got a refund so we were only out 100$
“Miscellaneous category” and we both start laughing, happy to be the fuck out of there.
At some point during this time we realized we were gonna be staying at a rest stop of some sort, Walmart was a half hour drive away from Loves, one of our favorite travel stops. We were totally cool with sleeping there because anything was better then that days inn room.
During the midst of this destruction werealized we could still continue our trip, just remove the blue ridge parkway section.
That means we’d do Shenandoah for 5 nights and backwater falls for 4 nights.
And that was the new game-plan
- Shenandoah loft mountain 4 nights
- Black water falls 2 nights
- Rocky gap for 2 nights
Similar to the original game-plan just a pit stop at Rocky gap to break up the drive home.
We got to love’s around midnight and I was soon off into a deep sleep.
6 am I woke up, washed up,and threw some laundry in. We needed to disinfect the blankets that touched the bed.
By 9 am we were on our way to Shenandoah, about an hour out.
We drove skyline drive for a little bit and by 1 pm we got settled into loft mountain.
A first come first serve site, the ranger station ladies here were so nice and a ton of laughs got laughed.
She eventually gave me a list of available campsites and told us to drive the campground and see which spot we want.
One quick loop we had 2 spots picked up and ended up picking loop A site 64. There’s. No one across from us; we have a front yard, and big back yard.
We get back to the ranger station to get squared up and the lady starts laughing.
“I knew yall were gonna pick that spot, I just found out that’s called the honey moon suite! Do not disturb” and we both start cracking up.
“Well it’s funny, my girlfriend and I have been together almost 9 years, we’re a bit unconventional and not married, we don’t really want to get married but it’s been a running joke the past month that this is our honey moon!”
And with that, we get posted up at our site.
It’s raining out but we’re happy to be away from days inn; we still are laughing about that. The car is way better. More comfy, more cozy, our own filth in the middle of the woods. This is what we love.
A nap follows and around 4 o’clock I realize I need to get a run in and by 4:30 I am off. A nice ten miler with foggy views, but I am loving life. You can’t really see much but you can feel it. Isn’t that worth something?
This place has bathrooms and running water, but the shower is about a mile away.
I finish my run and take my first baby wipe bath and for some reason, given the circumstances it gets the job done.
Just no sexy time until shower time lol.
I get back to the car and go for some chickpeas, tahini, and spinach and make some cold street tacos. This is the life.
Washed up and I am fast asleep by 9 o’clock. It’s raining out, hard, and the sound on the car is soothing.
I wake up at 8 am, holy shit an 11 hour quality slumber. I needed that more than I thought.
We spent the morning squaring the car up, our bags up, getting some workouts in , and caught up on some things from our travel day.
Time to get ready for a long run.
Keep on stepping✌🏽
Joe DiAndrea 