2003.09.20 – eagle rock, virginia (Saturday)

Woke up this morning to a house deserted, so so far we hadn’t actually *seen* my relatives who live in this house. Around 9 am, we awake to find a note from my Aunt Cindy (written in crazy calligraphy) saying that we should call up my great-Uncle Joe (brother of my grandfather), as he’d like to take us out to breakfast. A quick call to Joe, who was ready to go, and he came “up the hill” to get us. Joe took us into Clifton Forge — a town with a paper mill that wafts over the entire James River valley, making it smell like… well, it really has to be experienced. A funk. “Sulphur mixed with cooking pork” says Kelly. I think that’s just about right. Anyway, we ate at a little joint called the “Bullpen”.

Aptly named as back in it’s heyday, much like Clifton Forge itself, it used to service all the railroad crews that made frequent stops in this town. There was once a large railyard here, complete with an old-timey (by our standards) railway platform, but that has all gone by the wayside. Clifton Forge still retains a bit of its pride, though, as evidenced by it’s newly installed brick-like cross
walks (“not real brick,” Joe informs us). The food at the Bullpen was served by a “woman and a half” as I like to refer to her, and it was certainly home-cooked. Kelly didn’t want any meat on her “Bullpen Special”, and Jodene (named for the sake of this two-sentence anecdote) inquired “Why not? It /comes/ with your breakfast!”. Damned hippies. Well, the food was unspectacular, but it was certainly filling and the coffee was hot (and tasty).

After Clifton Forge, we headed back towards Cindy’s (Clifton Forge is north of Eagle Rock), and Joe wanted to take us by Bethel Cemetary, a cemetary which houses the Buhrman family plot, and which Joe has spent a good deal of money and time
upkeeping. After “minding the goose” that had been recently killed on the road in front of the cemetary, we pulled in and did a once-over. Joe detailed all o
f the work he’d had done (a good deal of which he did with his own late-70s hands). It was nice to see that this little rural plot was being cared for. I don’t know what will happen to it after Joe is gone.

We then headed further south, taking a short detour around the “Gala Loop” — which at one time surrounded the small town of Gala. After taking in another cemetary that Joe keeps up (the Galatia Presbyterian Church cemetery), we headed through a gate, into a field (with cow) that eventually connected to the rear of Joe’s property. Oh, by the way, we were in a Cadillac. Not a Cadillac truck, a “Cadillac car”. Joe takes that thing everywhere, and I must say, it performed beautifully.After winding our way down from the field where, many years ago, my brother and I had shot cow-flops with rifles, we arrived at Joe’s farmhouse. Joe detailed a list of things that he’d been busy doing this year to his property an d surrounding area — and let me tell you, I only hope to be half as active as he is at his age. He’s talking about moving entire sheds, attaching pulleys to trees to lift water tanks, dredging ditches and fixing roofs. Crazy. Joe showed us his antique restored tractors — large John Deere vehicles from the 40s and
50s, well kept and almost brand-new looking. He also had a set of three small John Deere lawn tractors. I guess that’s for the John Deere collector without enough space! He also had three Lincoln Continentals. I tell you — if he loves
something, he’ll have it in threes. Unfortunately, we didn’t really have time to stop in this museum of Buhrmanology that is Joe’s house as he was headed to Richmond that afternoon, so we chatted a bit, and he then took us down to Iron Gate, another small town in Virginia.

Iron Gate, so named not so much for a real Iron Gate, but for it’s large iron-ore smelting furnaces built into the hillsides. You can stop off on the side of the road to check out tall, tall furnaces, if you’d like. We didn’t. Iron Gate is one of those towns where if you blink, you’ll probably miss it. I wouldn’t say it’s thriving by any means, but it’s getting along just fine, nestled into th
is little canyon.

The real pride and joy of Joe’s area is Eagle Rock. It’s no Clifton Forge, mind you, but it certainly has it’s own charm. Eagle Rock is located in Botetourt County — so named for “Lord Botetourt”, apparently a very well-to-do man in the 1700s. So well-to-do that Botetourt County originally enveloped most of Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia. Now, it’s much smaller. Joe showed us around all four blocks of Eagle Rock, and pointed out the house where he bought one of his prized Lincolns. Joe used to be the caretaker for the Boutetourt County Museum, which I believe was in either Eagle Rock or Clifton Forge (can’t remember), and he also is a member of the Eagle Rock gardening club, as well as being a trustee for those couple of cemeteries. Its safe to say this place has a special piece of his heart.

I should mention what beautiful country this is. Large, rolling mountains frame either side of most roads here, and in some cases, large rainbows of rock strata come jutting out of the sides of these mountains. Eagle Rock is so named for one of thsese large outcroppings, and it keeps watch over the town from the west. The James River winds its way through these valleys, every once in a while flooding and returning tons of silt to the many farm fields that follow its banks.

After Eagle Rock, Joe returned us back to Buhrman Road, and Mount Buhrman, where upon John and Cindy’s house sits. Joe had been a most gracious and entertaining tour guide (to me, anyway. and by all accounts Kelly was even entertained), an
d we said adieu for now.

A note about towns:

There are, in my estimation, one half-billion small, fading towns in Virginia — and they all had their own churches and mills and what-nots. It’s odd to me to see a part of the country where now less people live than they did before. That in itself is an oddity. The grass grows high, and the roads wash away, and here is Joe trying to hold it all together.

We headed back to the mount, and then disembarked for the Roanoke market. The Roanoke Market is a fiercly local farmers market — fresh produce, flowers, wines
, cheese, arts, crafts, etc. There is but one “chain” restaurant there, and from what I understand, it was vehemently opposed. It’s a cool, but ultimately small area of town. We stopped and shopped in a couple of places, but in an hour we were done. I stopped into the Roanoke Weenie Stand for a quick hot dog (if you go to the Roanoke Market, you have to get a hot dog from Johnny Liakos. he’s been slingin’ dogs for 40 years. the hot dogs aren’t really anything terribly special, but they are good…) I didn’t get a chance to stop into the Texas Tavern this trip to Roanoke, sadly. After the breakfast we had at the Bullpen, and then the hot dog I had at the weenie stand, I was in danger of “being a pig” (to quote Kelly). We drove past and gave our respects.

There is a big star on a mountain in Roanoke. It’s called the Mill Mountain Star. It’s something like 50 feet tall, and lights up at night. We decided to fumble our way around to get up there, and in doing so, we found ourselves on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a nicely maintained scenic parkway that runs along the southern outskirts of Roanoke city proper (on the ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, no less). There were a couple of nice scenic loops, one of which goes up to the top of Roanoke Mountain. On one side of the mountain, you can see the city, and on the other, it looks like the sort of Germany/Austria that you’d see in “The Sound Of Music”. Little tiny houses with little tiny cows in a nicely rolling valley. We never did find the Mill Mountain star — but we certainly saw it from the valley below. The Blue Ridge Parkway is a wonderful drive with some great scenery (and a LOT of hard-core bikers doing those mountain roads).

We found our way back to Cindy’s afterwards, and Cindy had prepared us a wonderful dinner. It was enjoyed by all. I hadn’t had a steak in a long, long time, but Cindy was offering — so who am I to turn that down? It was good stuff.