Now that little order of business is taken care of, on to the sequel to the first part of the Lynchpocalypse Series. Apparently, a few people (No, I won't embarrass you by calling you out, @jennnyv and @sportgym1. Oh.... oooops! Haha!) were upset by the cliff hanger at the end. For that, I apologize. Maybe I wanted to leave you hanging so that you would want to come back to my blog? Or..... maybe the tiny human that I nanny had just woken up and I had things to attend to. Probably that last one.
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Whenever you make plans with a group, it's important to know that there are variables. And you should always have a back-up plan. Originally, the plans were to hike to The Devil's Marbleyard. I personally wasn't too keen on climbing over huge boulders in the heat, so I was going to sit that one out.
Then came the forecast for 100+ degree weather.
So in walked Plan B. Plan B was to do something involving water. Simple enough. I was definitely up for that. We were going to drive up to the Arnold Valley Pool, which was a natural spring up in the mountains. Swimming in cool water all day definitely seemed more appealing to me!
And then Derecho happened.
In the wake of Mr. Derecho,we decided the thing we wanted more than anything was to submerge ourselves in water and splash around.
But alas, there were roadblocks.
Roadblock #1: No Power. This meant no grocery stores were open, no ice for our coolers, no food, no cold drinks, and no ability to pay for things (unless you already happened to have cash).
Solution #1: Sheetz. All the Sheetz gas stations were opened. They just didn't have any power. So, we made the "gas station food" our lunch/breakfast, bought mildly cool drinks, and fretted over the fact that no power = no gas for one of the cars.
And, for the record, no road trip is complete without a Hot Pocket or two.
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| What're you gonna make? Hot Pocket! |
The trick was on how to cook it... But don't worry. I found a solution!!
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| 100 degree weather + a car dashboard = somewhat gooey H.P. :) |
Solution #2: "Out in the Sticks" BP on the Way to the Water. That gas station meant a lot to me. Some of the things that we were able to obtain was ice, cold drinks, real food, ice cream and gas. That gas station may have been laughably in the middle of nowhere, but it hooked us up with legit stuff.
Literal Roadblocks: Path to Arnold Valley Pool Closed. These came as we tried to enter the Blue Ridge Parkway. Storm damage was much more than we anticipated. When we got to the road, there were cones to the immediate right. So, we peeled out to the left, undefeated. We drove almost a mile and came to a screeching halt. Road. Block.
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| To some, road blocks are an invitation. Not to us... |
Ugh.
Solution #3: Begin Plan B Plan C. We headed a few miles back down the road to the James River Footbridge. Why? The title of this blog says it all: Bridge Jumping. As if being part of a 700-mile storm that compares to an F1 tornado wasn't enough, we decided it was a good idea to fling ourselves off ledges and a 45-foot bring into the 20-foot-deep river below.
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| The James River, viewed from a tall, tall ledge. |
On my VA bucket list are many things that I could only do here in Virginia. One of them is to jump off that bridge.... and hopefully not die.
Then we arrived and I looked at the bridge up close.
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| My friend, Jen, surveying the jump. |
That sucker is high.
Like, really high.
Like high enough that I knew I couldn't do it on my first try.
I had three brave friends. And by brave, I mean that they stood on the ledge of the bridge for a considerable amount of time. Mary was up there for about twenty minutes and then leaped off, yelling unintelligible phrases. The other two stood on that ledge for a little over an hour. Waiting, hoping and praying for the courage to step off the ledge into the air. Jaime jumped with the help of a cute boy, who offered his, "Do you want me to jump with you?" services. She happily let him join her. After a couple deep breaths and a countdown, Jen did it!
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| Getting into position. |
I was so proud of them.
Inspired, I jumped off a three-foot ledge. Go me.
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| The adventurers of the day. |
