Our friends, Cheryl and Harry, have a farm on the top of a mountain in western Virginia. We have visited them before and know that sunsets can be spectacular. This evening’s sunset did not disappoint.

Friday

We left Williamsburg at a reasonable hour and crossed Virginia on US-460. It’s a 4-lane divided highway with little traffic. It’s the kind of road we prefer.

Near Burkeville, VA, we stopped at Twin Lakes State Park for our morning coffee break.

An interesting feature of the children’s playground was this Tic-Tac-Toe board. I’ve never seen one like that before.

Traffic from Lynchburg to Roanoke and on I-81 was heavier, but not too bad. The last few miles to our friends’ home follows winding country roads. The last half-mile is an up-hill gravel road. Fresh gravel had been laid a few days before. It wasn’t a problem for the trikes, but I would not have wanted to climb the hill on 2 wheels.

We backed the bikes into a convenient spot near the guest house (and log splitter) and settled in for our visit.

There are a number of animals on the farm and nearby. Beth saw the hind quarters of a bear headed into the woods as we were driving in. Cheryl saw a bear stalk and snatch a fawn a few days ago. Fortunately we haven’t seen any more of the bear.

The domesticated animals are more fun to be around. Donkeys Molly, Nadia, and Teddy are playful pets.

Lucy was born earlier this Spring.

Echo is Lucy’s mom. Blackberry, the bull, is not Lucy’s dad, but he tolerates her mostly.

Beth had fun feeding Blackberry a banana treat. Cheryl picked him because he was raised with humans. He is gentle, but don’t turn your back on him or he may think it’s time to play.

The chickens roam free during the day, but are cooped up at night to keep them safe from bears, foxes, and coyotes.

We went into Floyd, VA, for dinner and ate at the “Bootleg BBQ.” It’s an eclectic collection of BBQ restaurant, gift shop, and juice bar.

There’s a hippie bus and some guys provided entertainment. The whole downtown has a hippie vibe to it.

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Saturday

Beth went to town in the morning to do some grocery shopping. Later she and Cheryl mended a fence.

This is the section of the fence Blackberry knocked down so he could go in search of a lady cow recently.

After lunch Beth and I went to Floyd to do some exploring. We checked out most of the cutsie shops. The Floyd country store had some entertainment going on.

The town has a nice park and entertainment area.

Beth has a thing for sock monkeys. She had one as a kid (not nearly so big) and made one for her boyfriend when she was in high school.

We stopped for coffee and hot chocolate at Cocoa Mia.

I’m going to dig out my selfie remote pushbutton to see if that helps.

We leave early tomorrow. Rain is predicted. We are taking secondary highways, so we should be OK. We parked the bikes close to the door for a quick getaway.

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