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Published: July 23rd 2008
home from home
a cabin in the woods miles from the uptight god fearin folk..how perfect is thatthe good thing about low points is that it means there has to be a climb back out. The climb out came from all a long term Internet friend, chris and her partner roger. A last minute call saying ' hey man you wanna come up and stay with us in crozet?. She even drove down to Roanoke to get me. I have known these people for over 10 years on the net but never met them, but by the end of the drive up to their cottage it was like we had been friends for life. The cottage is set out in a small community surrounded by woods and overlooked by the blue ridge mountains, truly beautiful.
Among this tranquility is a psiamiese psycotic cat called pseudo. A cat of disturbed proportions that likes to playfight, attack feet, hide in paper bags and formulate escape plans that would put Paul Newman from the great escape to shame. And all this without the aid of catnip.
I meet up with Roger before he heads out to work and find out what Santa does the other 364 days of the year. Then Chris and i cook up dinner...as usual i
enter someones house and end up in the kitchen cooking. But a bottle of local fizzy rose and several bottles of red later and we are ready for a bar when Roger gets back from work. *hic*
I was determined to get some hiking in the woods after the dissapointment of Roanake and Chris and Roger oblige and over the next few days we traipse over a fair few miles of the Blue ridge mountains. First 200yrds into one trek we stumble past a 200lb black bear, just over 20 m off the trail..... never seen a bear out in the wild before and this one kinda looked hungry, tho it did finally confirm one thing...bears really do shit in the woods. We would have gotten away with it to if it wasn't for a pesky kid... i don't know you do a kid a favour by pointing out the bear, which up till then was ignoring us, and he yells ' Hey paaw theres a bear!' oh well kids... soft on the outside crunchy on the inside.... luckily for us the bear just farts and wanders off. So we trek on keeping a close eye on the woods
rattlesnake!!!
just before is coiled up to strike.... either side of the trail, which meant we almost stepped on the 3ft rattlesnake lead out across the trail. oops.. Discovery channel is great tho..learn alot from it..without any conference we all slowely back up the path as the snake coils into strike mode.. its then i remember i have a anti venom kit... in my rucksack back at the cabin 40 mins drive away... oops.
The thing with scenic treks down a mountain to see a waterfall is that it means a scenic sweat back up the bloody thing to find the car... which was not there... Chris was in another car park waiting about 20 mins down the road... not that me or Roger knew that and its dusk on the mountains and we are acting as an all you can eat buffet for the local bugs population. Never been so happy to see a car or open a bag of chips...
The days fly by, hiking, checking out downtown Charlottesville, buying a hooka pipes and woks and cooking up feasts. Disturbing the neighbours and the deer with my Tai Chi and Chi gon exercises out in the field and watching sci fi films till my
Pseudo puppy
one cool cat...and thats high praise coming from a cat hating gamekeeper eyes bleed... well Rogers' not called scifidude for nothing. Catch up on all the babylon5 that i missed out on when the cancelled it all in the UK
But time moves and i get a call from my ex to say they will be in Charleston early the next week and I can get to spend a day with my kids. After4 weeks of not seeing them its an offer i cannot turn down so i have a last minute rush to find a way down there.... a mere 800 miles away.... so i get to the end of my time with Chris, Roger and Pseudo, but they are somebody I will be seeing again, either in the states or if they make it to the UK. Spend a few hours in Charlottesville before catching a 16 hour greyhound bus ride to charleston....
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kirst
non-member comment
storm
remember you have to see him on a regular basis, he could make life tough for u if you don't restore him to coolest cat!!