{To bad the bike isn't}
It had been a day plagued with constant static and the usual vagueness that is associated with management. Nothing too bad, but just the usual insufferable boredom and malaise associated with cat herding.
3:30PM, and I've filed my TPS report (I wish I was kidding about that...) and there were no more meetings on the clock. If I snuck out the back way I could make it out with less chance of being sucked into another Officespace inspired mini drama.
Yaaaaaah, I'm going to need you to work for the rest of your misrable life......
So I scooped up my gear and start to trundle down the back stairs... only to hear my bosses voice. CRAP! Like a school-boy about to get busted for cutting class I look around with wild-eyed panic for a hiding spot... and find one...
In the Janitors closet.
I'm not too proud to admit that I huddled with the mops and soft soap in order to enjoy what was left of the day and my sanity.
My unlikely safe harbor
How frikn' sad.
After the voices in the hallway fade ('cause the ones in my head berating me for hiding in a damn closet haven't shut up yet...) I slipped out the back door and made it to my bike.
No high-rez eye-popping photo's here... this is bargain basement phone camera work from here on out. However the blooming tree's and blue skys should be a tip off that NO ONE should of been languishing in an office breathing the same re-cycled air as "socially-akward-but-always-trying-to-be-funny-guy" or trying to deal with OCD White board Baron during a "quick-stand-up-meeting."
It's time to get the hell outta here and to the gas'n'go to make sure that I can get home eventually.
Tank filled and ODO reset I head... west, stopping at the Farm-Park on the way out to better prep the bike for some twisties and to loose the fleece underneth the yeller 'stich.
From there I take a set of usual roads, to usual places. The point of this ride is not to discover the unknown, but to flee. I cruise through the battlefield, take a few "not-so-short-cuts" through the last traces of small town Nova and then hook up with the what I consider the "mother road" of Nova: SR-55.
SR-55 was the pure west-bound route from the DC area to the Shenandoah Valley before I-66 went in. Sure US-50 goes west, but it wanders north here, south there... where 50 is a road that seems distracted by its surroundings, constantly zigging to hit some town deemed special enough to grace with a mileage marker, SR-55 floats westward, only detoured geography.
SR-55 was an old wagon trail as far back as the early 1700's. A life line from the valley back to towards the port town of Alexandria.
The area I was riding in was a kind of nexxus for the frontier traffic to and from the great port city of Alexandria. Parallel to the north the original US-50 was the Ashby Gap trading route, running from Winchester VA to Alexandria. The road to the south, running true west is SR-55, which was aimed at the Thorough Fare Gap and the mountains of the Shenandoah.
At Thorough Fare Gap stands what is left of Chapman's Mill - believed to of been the tallest mill in the US.
...until 1998
...during the arson burn in 1998
...Now
A quick history of the Mill:
chapmansmill.org wrote:Chapman's Mill
was built in 1742 by Jonathan and Nathaniel Chapman, a father/son partnership from an enterprising, well-connected colonial family. Enlarged in 1758, the mill became a prosperous gristmill that fostered the development of the Shenandoah Valley as a wheat and corn producing region for the next one hundred years. Due to the mill's location between the Valley and the city of Alexandria, corn and wheat could be transported efficiently by wagon to the mill, ground into cornmeal and wheat, and then shipped from Alexandria to ever-expanding markets in Europe and South America.
In 1759 Fauquier County was created from old Prince William County, and the related documents noted that the boundary between the two counties passed through the mill, as it does today. The prosperity of the mill was enhanced when, in 1852, the Manassas Gap Railroad was completed, passing beside the mill and reducing the travel time to Alexandria. In 1858 the Chapmans enlarged the mill, raising it to a total of seven stories and making it a model of agricultural technology. Chapman's Mill has ground cornmeal and flour for American troops during seven wars: The French and Indian, the Revolutionary, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I and World War II.
The Plains is a small town just after the Mill that served as a junction to the Ashby Gap Road (RT50) to the north. There is an outstanding motorcycle road that joins The Plains and Middleburg called "Halfway Road" This is another road that floats through its geology with a singular purpose. Lots of nice twisties, vista's, and green tree lined corridors to blast through.
Other towns grew-up on the road, like Old Salem which later became Marshall VA. Looking at this town, with its small town buildings, surrounded by farmland, its hard to imagine that it was a rugged frontier town serving the "Free State" area of Virgina deemed too wild to attempt to manage.
Okay, enough history... I spent a few hours traveling in creative circles through the Gap, in and out of Middleburg, The Plains, and Marshall. Finally I decided to stop at an Episcopal Church in The Plains for a little rest.
There is a magnificent pine tree in the Church lot with wide wandering branches...
... I could see the bike easily enough, panting in the warm sun.
Just about the perfect place for a little book break.
After a few chapters, I tossed an leg over the GS and headed off back toward the house, running solid and smooth against traffic - which was pretty damn thick at 7PM.
I was back at the house fairly quickly. I parked the bike and made my way inside to play "Mr Mom" for awhile. Even though I was parking him for awhile, the GS looked happy
My rugrat was constantly distracted by the big yellow bike as we ate homemade pizza on the deck. I think it might be in his blood too.
... all because I hid in a Janitors closet.