Autumnal Serenity

The seeminly endless stretches of prestine beaches and cozy neighborhoods littered with spanish moss came to a close as we began to transition to the east coast with its variety of people and wide spectrum of colors. Savannah had a great atmosphere, very laid back, but with that old southern charm that lets the lingering history of the area creep back in. Every street corner had some recognized historical significance and even the streets themselves were peeled back to old cobble stone roads to remind one of how things used to be. Here we part with our pal Todd and that night we met some couch surfers and an aspiring author that is traveling by bike all over the country after his financial stability took a turn for the worse (good luck man). The next morning we were off and away on the greyhound thanks to my grandparents and found our way to Roanoke at one in the morning. Here we met up with Paige and her friend Humi, we piled in her car and took off towards Virginia Tech. All together it was four jam packed days of laziness incredible hikes and parties galore. Needless to say, gin and tonic was not my friend and the beauty of blacksburg and the stillness of life here makes the existence of time drift far from conscious thought. Virginia tech like some medieval castle was layered in massive gray stone while the colorful country side that surrounded it gave off a château in France look. Overall I really enjoyed the town and the trails, I was really bummed not to have a bike to hit the trails with, but good people seemed to do just fine.



The next day Elo came by and took us from blacksburg up to Reston and gave us a place to stay in his living room. We toured the capital and saw the town and met plenty of friendly people. WE went to the rally of Sanity on the national mall which was pretty incredible. I have never seen anything like it before, it kind of felt like the zombie apocalypse was happening. We rode the metro into the city and there were lines of people all the way to the parking lot just to get on the subway in viginia 3 hours before the event even started. The streets were shut down in every direction and standing in the field with over 200,000 felt more like wading in the ocean than standing. It was really weird there wood be pockets of current that would develop and people would ride them to the outskirts of the crowd. Altogether though it was pretty stunning to just be a part of it. Probably the best thing about it was the speech at the end, it was dead silent on the mall except for Jon Stewarts voice and you could hear it echo all the way down the national mall, kind of made the spine tingle. Well its Halloween now and tomorrow we head to Philadelphia for some cheese steaks and New York that night via bus. Part II has officially begun.