(Yesterday, I got a message from the DeepFatFriar saying he had a rather forward proposition for me. He wanted to commandeer Picture Sunday this week. I thought that sounded great, so I sat back and waited while he sent me text and pictures. Thanks to the Friar, and here is his Picture Sunday.)

Picture Sunday

Hello, end-of-weekenders. DeepFatFriar here, guest Picture-Sundaying for Bet.

Well, the weekend got off to a slow start at noon Friday, when I was done working for the week. Hey, don't get jealous over that. I can do it because I start work before 5 am most days. I pretty much wasted the afternoon and evening in leisure, eating my way through a half-gallon of Blue Bunny Cookies and Cream, with a sticker proclaiming "Over 15% more scoops than a 48 ounce carton." To which my response is, "That's right, peckerheads, and exactly 12.5% fewer scoops than a half gallon!" But I digress.

I did go to a Society for Creative Anachronism meeting in the evening. For those who know about this group, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not, none is possible. But mostly, I spent the day getting Bucephalus (my bicycle) and myself ready for the Saturday Big Adventure.

The SBA was a trip to scout out the Greenbrier Rail Trail, a 75+ mile long bicycle trail the southern end of which is in Lewisburg, West Virginia. It was forecast for 60 degrees F, a perfect day in February, so why not? I stopped at the brand new Panera on the way out of town for coffee and bagels to go, and went.

Now, Lewisburg, West Virginia (home of the West Virginia College of Osteopathy) is about 60 miles due north of Blacksburg Virginia, where I live. But you cannot drive due north from Blacksburg very far. The roads around here just don't go in that direction. In order to go 60 miles due north, you have to go way the hell out of the way in some combination of northeast and northwest. So about 85 miles later, I got to that other burg up there by taking the Betty-Bet-Bet Inspirational Highway to just before it crosses the New River and goes into WV, and turned right on Route 219 into West Virginia, to 63, to 60, to the road the bike path starts from. And typically for me, because I am usually at work before 5 am and sleeping in has a different meaning for me than for most humans, I got there before 9 am, and the temperature at the trailhead was 25 F.

So I rode around town for a bit, and saw this...

...just down the road from these.

Those are black vultures roosting in that tree. About a third of the group that was in that and the adjacent trees. Take a moment, and write your own joke.

Thank you. And then I went back to the trailhead, and started up the trail, but it was still below freezing. I got about 2.5 miles out, over sometimes clear and sometimes snowy-icy trail, and enjoyed the scenery...

...and decided to turn back and scout out another location about 23 miles up the trail, in Renick.

Now, Renick is about 23 miles up the trail, but it's only about 15 miles up the road, as the river meanders a lot, so I drove right through it, thinking that being a major trailhead, it would have some tourist development I'd notice. Wrong. Nothing. But in the process, I did get to drive over this oddly-named geographical formation...

...twice. By the time I got back to Renick and got lost again because I didn't realize the sign pointing to the trail with a left arrow meant you should turn at the second left, not the first, it was 11:30 or so. The river was still icy as you can see...

...but the trail was clear. And the street down to the river is aptly named.

Unfortunately, the trail was fairly soft and I didn't get far, but as I said, it was a scouting trip. I headed back to Lewisburg and, having decided like the Magi to return home a different way, got on I-64 east. About 15 miles down the road, I came to my exit, the sign for which seems to indicate unwarranted certainty within the WV Department of Transportation.

Now, if they are going to put up a sign, and have an exit for them, and promise an exact number, you'd be forgiven for thinking there'll actually be that many. I never saw even one. Perhaps it's that the exit is in West Virginia but the birds are in Virginia. The border does odd things up there. Before I got back to the Betty-Bet-Bet Inspirational Highway east of Pembroke, I'd crossed the Virginia-West Virginia state line five times. Damn drunk cartographers.

But I digress. As I said, I never saw any crows at all, but I did go through a couple of interesting places like...

...and ended up in Paint Bank, home of the Swinging Bridge Restaurant, where I stopped in for lunch. Now, the Swinging Bridge Restaurant is aptly named. It actually has a swinging bridge. Right there in the dining room. Over the diners. From one side of the balcony to the other. You can dine under it if you want to, but I don't know why you would want to, because you can walk across it if you want, too. But there is a sign on it that says "Not suitable for vehicles."

And after lunch, having gone way the hell out of the way to the southeast to get to Paint Bank, I went way the hell out of the way to the southwest to get back to the Betty-Bet-Bet Inspirational Highway, and so home to Blacksburg, having driven about 260 miles in order to bicycle 6. Boy, did I digress.

The rest of the weekend was typically DFFish. I made blueberry pancakes for supper...

...and prepared some elk brisket and roast vegetables for the pot luck we have at the Unitarian Universalist meeting house the second Sunday of each month, and listened to internet radio till bed time. I stayed up unusually late. 10:30 pm. But the hours I retire and rise are not the oddest thing about me. The oddest thing, culturally, about me, is that I do not own a TV. Hence the radio. And the hours, probably, as well. But I digress.

Sunday morning, I contrived a way to carry the elk brisket and roast vegetables to the UUCMH on Bucephalus (remember Bucephalus???), and a good pot luck...

(pic of pot luck)

...was had by all. [Which you'll have to imagine, because as you can see, DFF's pot luck pictures didn't get made. - Bet]

And I rode around town and on the the local trails about 17 miles, and now, I'm about ready to call it a weekend.

It's a weekend. Hope yours was as enjoyable as mine.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Thank you, DeepFatFriar, for the entertaining Picture Sunday. I think this opens a whole new avenue for PS. Anyone who'd like to volunteer to take over Picture Sunday anytime, please let me know. I think it would be very interesting for us all to see the illustrated weekends of my friends. Any takers?