Day 10: 6/14/77
That morning, we chatted with Mr. Saul on the banks of the New River. He was an ex-Navy man who had been stationed in Norfolk. He’d returned to his homeland after retirement and ran a little store. He and I shared some sea stories, but he had more to share than I did—but I was able to tell him about the navy destroyer I cruised on, about three years flying out of Oceana. Our tent pegs were bent, and his son and I straightened them out with a ball peen hammer, using the top of an old coke machine as a workbench.
We left in a drizzle and stayed wet most of the day. We opted not to use the rain gear, because it felt good after the heat we’d been experiencing. Also, our rain gear was cheap panchos, which were flimsy and seemed dangerous to wear on a bike as they flared out in the wind. Perhaps we’d really need them at a later time.
We ate lunch at a little store. We ate cottage cheese, peanut butter, saltines and grapefruit juice. The woman at the store gave us each a candy bar after eating. I chose Hershey’s with almonds and Inanna chose a Snickers bar. Another nice person, giving us something which had cost her good money.
It seemed that all these little stores had more candy and junk food than anything else. We could almost never get fresh fruit or meats at small country stores. But we could count on them to have plenty of white bread, candy, Twinkies, etc.
We decided to take a short cut into Wytheville, which included seven miles on U.S. 11. Interstates 77 and 81 just happened to be using that stretch of highway, and the traffic was very rough. These days, you can have the unique experience of driving north and south at the same time where 77 and 81 come together. Driving west, the highway sign says you are taking 77N and 81S—simultaneously.
We met two young guys who stopped their van to talk with us. They gave me a snort of whiskey and Inanna and I shared the coke they offered. They were very friendly. They said they wanted to do a similar trip. Their old van was loaded with coke bottles. They were buying them for five cents and taking them to Bristol, Tennessee, where they could sell them for ten cents each. I told them about my first childhood heist: while in grade school, my ne’er-do-well friend and I sneaked into the back lot of a grocery store, stole a little red wagon full of pop bottles, brought them into that same store for their deposits, and then bought candy with the money!
In Wytheville we dried the clothes from a long wet day. Even the tent went into the dryer. We were running low on fuel for the backpack stove, and remembered that the hardware stores only sold Coleman fuel in gallon cans, which we couldn’t begin to carry. We saw an RV and knocked on the door, hoping to buy a little fuel from the owners. Out came a friendly man, potbellied, in shorts and a tee shirt, who was happy to help. With my little plastic funnel we filled my fuel bottle, which held about a pint. When I reached into my pocket and asked how much I owed him, he refused to allow me to pay him. In the summer time, people who drive RVs are almost always in a good mood, we found, and they are always ready to help a fellow traveler. We learned we could always approach an RV when we needed fuel, and would always be helped. Only once more that whole summer did we spend any money on fuel.
We started back up, headed for the A.R.E. Camp, where we hoped to meet ***. After a long hard grind, we were there—except for the mile and a half mud road, which forced us to walk the bikes and totally frustrated and exhausted us. Finally, at A.R.E. Camp, Steve Wood met us and told us that *** hadn’t arrived yet. I was greatly disappointed. Steve guided us to the showers. We could have slept separately in dorm-like cabins, but decided instead to pitch the tent in a meadow below the cabins.
Inanna cooked a delicious meal on our single burner stove: Fresh asparagus and an omelet with cream cheese and olives. We went to the campfire where we sang songs with the campers.
The A.R.E. Camp is part of the Association for Research and Enlightenment, the foundation founded by the psychic Edgar Cayce. We had visited the A.R.E. in Virginia Beach, and knew that this camp was a place where kids could spend a week or two in a rustic environment, having fun and pursuing Cayce-related spirituality. I certainly didn’t know it then, but I would find myself coming back to this camp many times over the coming years. Cathy, my daughter, who was then 6, became a camper at age 10 and spent some of her summer there for the next 17 years, graduating to cook and then counselor. My two younger daughters, Lindsey and Shannon, were not yet born at the time I made this trip. Later, they would pick up where Cathy left off. Between 1981 and 2002, there wasn’t a summer without at least one of my daughters spending time there. Since I have now driven there many times, I can tell you it takes about 6 hours to get there from Norfolk/Virginia Beach. But it had taken us ten days to bicycle there!
When we went to bed I dreamt that the children from the camp were slowly walking past the tent, each with a candle. The only sound was their footsteps. Then I heard a loud clang and woke up. I poked my head outside the tent, flashlight in hand, only to find myself staring at a huge cow. The cow had been walking around our tent in the dark, grazing, and finally kicked over our stove by accident. I was scared and speechless at first. Then I yelled at the cow, “Go away! I don’t like you!” Perhaps this is not the normal thing to say to a cow past midnight. In any event, the cow just stared at me placidly, so I finally realized it meant no harm and went back to sleep. But we had a new souvenir—a cowprint in our stove.