Riding An Airhead Road (revisited)
No doubt you’ve all seen the book A Long Way Round, and most likely heard of the movie A Long Way Down, well while you’re all waiting for the musical adaptations to come out, :lol allow me to share another Long Way adventure of a slightly different nature being somewhat closer to home. Yes I know its not nearly as long, but compared to my normal commute of an hour, this afternoon adventure, at slightly over three hours, and thus three times as long still qualifies as “Long”, least in my view. And although its not nearly as impressive as the other Long Way(s), I did do it all by my lonesome, without the benefit of a chase van and film crew and furthermore I did it not on a modern twenty thousand dollar machine, but rather on my trusty 30 year old airhead with 170 some thousands of miles on it, so there! :p
Since I work so close to the Blue Ridge, literally within spitting distance, on nice days rather than take my normal route home, which is pretty nice in and of itself, since its pretty much traffic free, I’ll instead head west toward the mountains and farming valleys that run parallel and between the Blue Ridge. Many of the roads in the area date back well over a hundred years, or I should say the routes they trace do, and there are many old homes, small towns and churches along the way dating back to those simpler times.
Note that these pictures where taken over several of my afternoon alternate commute rides, but all were taken along one of my various optional routes from work to home.
So without further explanation here is just one of my many Alternate Afternoon Commutes, that comprise my tale of The Long Way Home.
Starting off from work I usually head west on Rt. 50 so we’ll start there, after that its anyone’s guess what roads I’ll take but today I’ll relate one possible route.
About 8 miles from work near Dulles Airport just a bit after Rt. 50 narrows to two lanes is the first old town I pass thru named Aldie. Here is a typical old house one might find in such a town.
The carriage house where the horses and carriage were once kept, now converted into a possible guest house storage area. You can see where the large doors once were located and now concreted in.
Next, a selection of pictures from the old Aldie Mill
An interesting double water wheel drive
A spillway for overflow when the stream was running particularly high
‘cause I like old trees
Look out for that first step!
A detail of the old building, this is more than just an ornament, it is attached to a rod that goes through to the other side of the building just below the floor level. this is a method often employed with old brick buildings to prevent the pressure of the pitched roof tresses push out on the walls, from causing them (the walls) bowing out. Often times the ornament looks like a star or some other geometric shape; the rods generally run lengthwise with the floor joists, although in building I noted they ran both ways, both with the joists and across which is somewhat unusual. Note that in many of the old brick and stone homes and buildings dating back 50 or more years the joists are not anchored into the walls, rather the ends are cut at an angle upwards and simply rest in slots in the wall, that way if they burn and the floor collapses they will not bring down the stone work. Its that lack of internal anchoring that resulted in the employment of said rods. But enough with my architectural dissertations, lets get back to the pictures (or you’ll be saying to yourselves “he should have called it The Long Winded Way Home!” Ha Ha!)
Now for some shots of an old church along my route further down the road, this again is typical of the kind of stone work one finds in the east. (Yes Yes, I know I should have moved the damn sign board!)
Have I ever mentioned I like trees? This is a detail of a vine growing on very old one in the garden of the church above
A tree knot in the root system, taken for no particular reason, though one does not find knots in root systems that often, speaks of the age of the tree...
(end of part one)
TedV
I really enjoyed this post.