Sat 20 Apr - Roanoke, VA

Cool and crisp morning in Roanoke after yesterday's rain. We are (of course) off hiking today again. We are trying another part of the Appalachian Trail, from Catawba Mountain to McAfee Knob and back again the same way.

We love that little AT symbol...

So, here we are at the trailhead at Catawba Mountain. As you can see, it is cold.
Hans is showing off his new hiking boots bought the day before (with new hiking socks). All good.
The trail is quite busy, with day hikers, a few but not many long distance hikers, dog walkers and quite a lot of people who should know better than hike into the woods looking like it was a spur of the moment decision...
 
At one point, the Appalachian Trail crosses a fire trail where some kind person had left a roll of toilet paper around a plastic bottle, see below. There is a story behind that...
Here is Di singing her signature hiking tune "Valderii Valderaa"...
This is not a difficult hike, although we are climbing 1200 feet (just under 400 meters). It is all very gradual uphill, not hard, and nothing like the much steeper Great Smoky Mountains. We have arrived...
The views from McAfee Knob are stunning on a clear day like today. We let the pictures speak for themselves...
That "top of the world" feeling...
Di being "Safety Sam" and sitting back from the edge - a very significant drop!
We wander back from McAfee's Knob to Catawba Mountain trailhead, but take the fire trail back for part of the time. The fire trail follows the Appalachian Trail pretty much in parallel and we finish off the hike in a little over 4 hours. Distance is 12.75 km.
 
As the time now was just after noon and we hadn't eaten the sandwiches that we brought, we decided to dump those and go into Roanoke town centre for lunch, a drive of perhaps 20 minutes or so.
We found a popular bistro called Blues BBQ in downtown Roanoke where they were serving pub fare. Hamburger sounded good for Hans. Di had a Carolina pulled smoked pork sandwich with collard greens. Delicious and very southern. All good.
We liked their bar stools...
By coincidence, there was a bit of party atmosphere in Roanoke as they were hosting the finish for Blue Ridge... Marathon.
Today is 5 days after the explosions around the finish line for Boston Marathon. Needless to say, there was a significant police presence, many more than what you would normally expect for an event like this in a small town.
Much of the marathon action had already been completed before we arrived, but not everybody had crossed the finish line after 5 hours and 15 minutes...
They advertise this as America's toughest road marathon because it runs up to mountain to the Blue Ridge Parkway goes down the other side and up and over again. The stragglers definitely deserved our applause.
 
Well, it was all very relaxed in downtown Roanoke, a pretty good rock band was playing and people were drinking beer out of plastic cups. Great day for a party.
Another reason why we wanted to have a closer look at downtown Roanoke is to check out the Taubman Museum of Art building.
The building itself has a very Frank Gehry feeling to it and looks a lot like a smaller version of either Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao or Experience Music Project (EMP) in Seattle. We loved it.
Just like in Bilbao, there is a bridge next to the museum so you can walk out there and get a view of the building from a distance.
We wander into Taubman Museum of Art to have a look at its interior. Admission is free.
We had to go through a bit of a complex process for a locker as backpacks were not allowed inside the museum. We did not have the heart to tell their staff that we would run out of time for our car parking in 30 minutes so we headed up stairs to have a quick glance at an exhibition titled "50 Great American Artists".
 
The stairs were fantastic green glass on top and definitely a feature of the foyer.

The exhibition spaces inside Taubman Museum of Art were great but we were tired and not in the right mind set for art appreciation so we soom headed back outside.

A side note, a quick bathroom break took us into the most vibrant colored bathrooms we had ever seen. Fluro orange for Women and serious red for Men. Everything was colour schemed in there. Sorry no photos...

Roanoke residents have tried to preserve some of their historic signage, including this one for H&C Coffee. They look great on top of old buildings and probably even better in neon at night.

We are not sure whether the star on the hilltop is also part of this campaign but it is certainly a landmark.

Roanoke really impressed us as a working town, not a tourist destination. Downtown old buildings are well maintained and cute yet across the bridge from the Taubman Museum of Art is the railway workshops of Norfolk Southern. Still very much in use downtown. We loved the smell, activity and sound of the workshops and the great contrast.

Turn 180 degrees and use see a whole different aspect to the town. Far more interesting than a Disneyland tourist town like Gatlinburg (says Di. Hans hasn't been there since he was hiking that day)

For hiking we need a few more supplies for lunches and for afterwards, some beer and cooler drink, so we stop past Walmart (again) to top up. By 4pm we get back to the hotel exhausted (we think more from shopping than hiking!)

At around 7pm, we drive across to the other side of I81 and to Cracker Barrel for dinner. They have this tremendous country dinner meal for $7.69. Choose one main dish out of perhaps 15, add two sides of your choice out of a similar number and with a choice of either one of two types of bread.

There is, not surprisingly, a 20 minutes wait for a table at Cracker Barrel, but the whole operation is very slick and we get our food very soon. We are served by a chubby charming man called Patrick who regales us with details of his Irish background and where he's lived up until now. At one point he lived in Richmond, VA, and on hearing that we were Aussies told us about his local car mechanic - an aboriginal man from downunder. In Virginia? Well it is true that Aussies get around but that surprised even us.

Some time after 8pm, we drive back to Super 8 after another very satisfactory meal. The 3 meals that we have had in Roanoke have all been very good value for money. We like this town. Good night.

 

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