Rambles and Brambles

The Rivanna River Trail has become a favorite of mine. Several nights a week you can find CJ and me hiking somewhere along it - I mean, there is not much else to do in sleepy Charlottesville! As a kid, I used to watch The Waltons, and I remember that they would travel into "the city" (i.e. Charlottesville) when they needed something that couldn't be purchaced on Walton's Mountain. But even in that show, Richmond was the larger, more sophistocated city of the two. But in this NYC girl's eyes, even Richmond looks like a little podunk town. However, I am learning to appreciate a bit of country living... learning to enjoy the simple pleasures (or at least that is what I often hear them called)... milk cows grazing in the fields, cylindric hay bales scattered across green meadows, brightly-colored insects that apparently kill the Ash trees (a post for another time), old barns whose paint is chipping and roofs are sagging, the sound of water tripping over stones on its way downstream, and little red berries that I seem unable to identify (but I think may be wild straberries, or somehow related).

The aforementioned berries

A home for the homeless

We came across a couple of homeless gentlemen on a recent hike. They had quite the set-up, so I thought maybe they were just Freegans. I am not quite sure what was up with the two lawnmowers and the edger (doesn't seem like there would be much need for that in the middle of the woods!).


CJ, hiking

When the brush got rather thick, we began question how far we should continue on the trail.

The Rivanna River

Then we came upon a lovely clearing with a bench, overlooking the river. Score!

All in all, it was another lovely evening in little C-ville.

Sad, but True...

I came across this quote just this morning. I think it may just be spot on. It makes me wonder if this next election will really help us at all. I'd like to believe we are still a good country - the best country, but what witness around me every day really makes me question that belief. What we need is not a new president, but a new morality, or should I say a return to the old morality. Apart from Christ, there is no hope for change in this country.

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting an inexperienced man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of Idiots such as those who made him their president."