By: An Jimenez
A rest day in Natural Bridge, Virginia. Your first thought might be: “A whole day in Natural Bridge? What’s there to do there?” Your second thought will then be: “How can she read my mind?” In the following blog post, I’ll address both of these concerns.
We took the morning easy. Most of us slept in past 9am because of our ridiculous 60 mile day yesterday. Lisa and I ended up sleeping in the back of the van which, with the L.L. Bean sleeping pad, was surprisingly quite comfortable. Bethany made scrambled eggs for breakfast with eggs that were locally-sourced twenty feet away from the kitchen. We hung our laundry outside to dry, unloaded the van, made an emergency order of last-minute essentials from Amazon, and then drove to Lexington for lunch in a vegetarian/vegan restaurant called Blue Phoenix.
The food was stellar. I ordered a bowl with rice and quinoa, avocado, tomato, cucumber, grilled tofu, and balsamic vinaigrette. Some other orders from the team included the Harvest Burger (house tofu and brown rice burger), Cali Salad (lettuce blend, carrots, cabbage, red onions, cheese, avocado, tomato, seeds, grilled artichokes), and the Phoenix Wrap (spring mix, cabbage, carrots, onions, tomato, avocado, grilled artichokes, house burger, seeds). We finished lunch at an ice cream parlor that served huge portions of delicious, home-made scoops.
After eating, Kate and I walked around downtown Lexington (a small, quaint town with a couple strips of shops and cafes) while the others went back to our host’s home to grab bikes to take to a bike store for fixing. We stopped for coffee and tea at the Lexington Coffee Shop (I tried a tea called “Gunpowder Tea,” and it was bold) and conversed in Spanish for a bit to jog our memory of imperfect subjunctive and Si clauses. After reuniting with our team, we all drove to the Natural Bridge State Park. Once owned by Thomas Jefferson, the 215-foot tall Natural Bridge is a limestone gorge carved out by Cedar Creek. We took this incredible picture there.
We drove back to our host’s home, did some chores to help around our host’s home ranging from moving rocks to picking vegetables to organizing CDs, and finally grabbed dinner around 9pm at the one-and-only, artisanal McDonald’s. Iconic.
I’m currently sitting on our couch listening to our wonderful host talk about overnight oats and how to make pies and massage tips 101. She is incredibly interesting and has a lot of advice to offer. I’m not looking forward to another 60 mile day tomorrow, but así es la vida.
To answer the more important question of how I can read your mind, well, that information can only be disclosed in person (meet us on the West coast!).