05-IX-2009.
We got up, broke our fast at ease, probably something from a grocery - there's a Walmart across the square and a Keymart right behind the chinese eatery. This is a motel, no breakfast.
Drove through the long main street in Martinsville. Half of the shop windows are boarded up. Crisis is on, they all closed.
We arrived at Undersville around ten. Then walk.
Behind the house... as if we never touched anything. The brown heap is a bush which grew through the branches we cut last spring. The jungle recovers in two months here. Soil is good, could grow anything here. To differ from lower parts of Virginia, where it's red soil, this is mostly black, greasy, just like at home.
The house is... in a shape. Practically all the glass is smashed. The neighbor says the alcos from the trailer park, across the creek (but only 400m by road, going around) were partying inside. It's all tumbled inside, they used it as a warehouse/junkyard again... well okay, nothing of value there. There's an old sofa on the terrace, just couldn't see any chips from whittling a piece of wood.
Frontside, the neighbor cut down one of the two huge trees, which were on either side of the path from the main door to the road. I told him he can take both. They are old, and I don't want them toppling onto the road and then me owing anyone damages.
No trace of plants that she poked into the slope. There are deer traces, must have been a delicacy for them.
The lowest branch broke off our big tree. It's almost a meter across. We still don't know what tree is that. I sent pics to dad, he doesn't know either.
In the cracks of the branch we found various biospheres, all kinds of bugs. A heap of some eggs, sized between geen peas and marbles, dark and shiny wet but not quite black.
Our creek is nearly dry, as expected by the end of summer. The Walmart cart is still there, a bit downstream, where we hold the left bank and it's on the right.
The tree wasn't felled by a tornado, that's on the other hill, this is the creek washing off the soil around the roots. Other trees were more lucky - there's a tree where water flows under its trunk's axis, but it holds firm by most of the roots growing into the slope. Even our big tree has the creek flowing around it only partially - the other part flows under it.
Around 11 we had enough of walk and sightseeing, so we hit the Blacksburg road, not far, three villages away, to buy apples and tomatoes at Wade's. Half a bushel of each. The apples are large and sweet, incredible, and the tomatoes are the real thing, just like they once were at home. And it's piss cheap, almost 20$ altogether. Along the way, looking at Undersville and the other two villages... sorrow. Four sawmills operated there, and 2-3 furniture factories. Now it's only the one sawmill in Undersville and even that was working at bare 15% capacity a year ago, now probably less. There's talk about closing that too.
Meanwhile Wanda came by but we were gone already. She sent an email at 12:45.
In the afternoon we lied around in our rooms, probably took a nap too. That air. In the evening I don't know, there was a fat bottle of sangria, probably just sat and chatted. Nina and Ender went for a ride. They love mountain roads, and this is perfect - a real pleasure to drive, not too dangerous or crowded, just watch for the deer.
In the morning we dropped by Undersville again, posted the „no trespassing“ sign (aka „ne tresi pasoš“ - don't shake the passport), the one that remained. The other one is gone.
And then around 10 we hit the road, there's 300 miles to go. We dropped by Quiznos to pick sandwiches. The crazy combination - this is southvirginian wolfuckland but it has a four lane road, there are horses grazing on the next meadow yet this is a tall building, front wall all glass, and they have their own gimmick on how to speed up the throughput. At Subway you move along the counter and pick first the bun (one of four or five equally spongy kinds of dough, no crust to mention, half baked), then the meat (watered down ham, baloney or whatever), cheese, topping and perhaps a soda - and then you are already at the cash register and you watched your sandwich being made. Quiznos has screens where you go through the same process, more or less, picking ingredients by picture. It prints a slip, which you take to the cashier and your sandwich is waiting for you. That's, roughly, how I remember it. It's all glitter, nickel, shiny plastic and colored lights, the sixties' SF setting. Except we didn't feel like actually eating there - drove for another fifteen minutes and stopped at the lake, near Clarksville, and ate there on the parking. With our fresh tomatoes and apples, overlooking the lake. We did have them walkies talkies, so agreeing on the place was no problem.
And then no stopping until home. There's a message I sent to UA at 17:06.
Meanwhile, the oldwave discussed the, finally proper, first after 1987, remastered collection of bitlsi (Beatles :). Mostly quoting the article written by guess who: Gary. Got me right there.
On seventh new motherboard for zmajček arrived, Gigabyte brand. The processor is an Athlon with three cores. Of course there's no such thing, it can't have an odd number of heads, and sure enough it actually has four, but one seems to be faulty or causing overheat, whichever, so this has it disabled and discounted.
This time I also have a beast of a cooler. A certain Hapaz from ppp configured it all for me - I just went to Newegg and bought what he said. Always have a hardware guy. When it's new motherboard time, I find they invented a bunch of new tricks, takes three days just to learn what's what called and what's the good stuff among that, what I need and what's just gold plating... you get old before you learn to pick.
Mentions: Ender Aquila (Ender), Gary Brandywine, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), oldwave, ppp, UbiquAgora (UA), Undersville, zmajček, in serbian