March 6 - 12, 2011

Week 12 and not very many miles this week - too much time spent at the computer!  Still an interesting journey this week though.

3/6's walk:

Still lots of country farms.  I remember seeing silos (the tall round structures) on farms on the East Coast all the time, but they aren't as common in Colorado.  Which I find interesting because lots of corn is grown out here but silage (ground up corn, usually stored in silos) isn't used as much here.  Maybe because cattle feeding is done on a much bigger scale here as opposed to the small herds in the east.  Anyway this is a pretty scene along the road.

3/7's walk:

I couldn't resist... Tribble Road.  Anyone who has watched the original Star Trek series knows that Tribbles are small furry creatures that reproduce rapidly.  What most people don't know is that a tribble is also frame on which paper is dried.  Whether the road is named for the creature or the frame is anyone's guess, but I found it amusing.

3/8's walk:

Pretty scene of  old barns and a brick silo.

3/9's walk:

I believe this is the North Branch of the Roanoke River.  Notice the fences around the trees - deer fences?

3/10's walk:

 Spent an hour on horseback today. 
So I'm going along on the aerial and notice a large bridge that is high enough to cast a pretty large shadow - this thing must be really tall!  And why?  It's out in the middle of nowhere and a much shorter bridge would have crossed Wilson Creek just fine.  What gives?  The two photos in the area give a clue - Smart Road Bridge.  So I look up Smart Road and discover that the Virginia Department of Transportation has built a "smart" section of roadway for testing paving materials and road conditions and other transportation related items.  The picture of the bridge below is taken from their website:

This is a really interesting project. And by the way - the bridge is tall - 175 feet - it's the tallest in VA. To find out more check out: http://www.virginiadot.org/projects/constsal-smartrd.asp

3/11's walk:

The old train depot in Christiansburg.  I've traveled far enough now that I have to leave the first of the 12 maps for the TransAmerica trail behind.  Even though it's never left the house it's been handled a lot in the past couple months.  Maybe some day I'll get to use it on the road!  I did get to spend a half hour on horseback.

312's walk:

An aerial overview of Christiansburg.  Lots of big trees and nice homes.  About 20,000 people live there.  Next week on to Radford!