Roanoke (5/6/2015)

It's been a long week of travel and teaching my stormwater and erosion and sediment control classes,  but it does get me out there and see different places.  I decided to stop in Roanoke on my way to my next destination: Rocky Mount.  In the past I was generally disappointed by the dining possibilities in Rocky Mount,  so I thought I had a great excuse to do a bit of hiking in the Roanoke Mountain area and grab a nice dinner afterwards.  (FYI, Rocky Mount has now gotten a great new place for lunch and dinner that I was not aware of before my visit this week, it is down town near the farmers market.)

I have hiked in the area before, I was looking forward to a nice hike after a full day of teaching.  Googleling (is that a word?) hiking in Roanoke I decided to hike at least part of the Chestnut Trail.  Getting there is relatively easy; I got there via the Blue Ridge Parkway.   Reading the website of the hike I read now that you need to park in the "Overlook "parking lot,  which I did not do.  I drove on the to the picknick/camping area.   I would vote against that since it seems that there is anative entrance fee to that area.

The part of the trail that I hiked was nice.  My only gripe was that the trail was not well marked and that there were too many unmarked side trails.  However it was very intuitive and I never got lost thanks to my smartphone and Google maps which has the trail maps on it.

If you are in the area, a visit to Roanoke Mountain is a must.  You have some great views of the surrounding area from this mountain.   Weather was coming in during my visit this time, so I cut my visit short and went to dinner.

Dinner at Montano's was great as usual, and my drive to Rocky Mount was exciting with all the gorgeous lightning and heavy rain.

Crozet (7/24/2014)

The past week I was traveling again, and I got as far west as Roanoke and Daleville (see also this and this post).  It is a two-day class and it really depends on who your fellow teachers are on what you do the evening in between.  A few weeks ago my fellow teacher was an outdoorsy person and a trail runner, so after class I went for a hike while she went running (she's 30 years younger, so I was not even going to pretend to want to keep up with her).  This past time the first thing my fellow teacher said when the day was over and even before all the students were gone was: "where can we find a good beer?"  Thank goodness, Daleville has a restaurant called the "Tap House" which is where we hung out for a while.

In other words there was little opportunity to explore and take pictures.  So on my way home I had this internal debate of where to stop for dinner; and eventually my craving for a good pizza won.  I still think that Crozet Pizza in Crozet is probably one of the best pizza joints in all of Virginia.  Crozet is located just west of Charlottesville and is home to some really good pizza and good beers.  I had a wonderful meal there.  The town of Crozet is just a nice place to visit, and it is a nice distraction form the monotony and insanity of driving the interstate highways.

In all, it was a successful week of teaching stormwater in western Virginia.  The most exciting thing was so see so many old friends and students from previous classes.  It made me feel at home and just in a very ice comfortable atmosphere.  In addition, I got one of the nicest compliments in a while when one of the students told me that everyone in his office still talks about me and the classes that they took from me.  All very positive and among the best classes they ever had, which makes me feel it is worth it; the travel, the staying in motels, the exhaustion, and loosing my voice so now and then.

Roanoke (7/1/2014)

I went for a walk after teaching today in Daleville in the Roanoke area.  My fellow teacher had identified Carvings Cove Natural Reserve as a great place to go for a run, and since my knees don't allow running I went for a 2 mile walk.  I took this picture at the end of my walk.  It was good weather, low 90s and somewhat cloudy.

Teaching was fun, i taught the module on why it is important to think about stormwater, and I could talk about my ideas on urban sprawl, and the perrils of it.  Just great to be able to teach my students environmental stewardship.  I was able to bring in the Bedouins of North Yemen, deforestation in Nepal (I worked in both countries in the 1980s), and urban planning in Holland.  After that going out into the woods was fun.  You really appreciate being out there.

Daleville (1/29/2014)

This week I was teaching in the Roanoke area, and having the winter from hell, it snowed.  I was in Daleville, just northwest of Roanoke at the Greenfield Training Center.  Thank goodness we only had 2 inches, while at my home in Yorktown we had 6 inches or more.  This was the view from the window of my classroom.  Such a beautiful view was almost distracting while teaching my class, but I behaved and paid attention to what I had to say.  I took this photo between sessions of my class.

Daleville is surprisingly nice.  It seems to be an up and coming community which you can only appreciate once you get of the Interstate.  The even have few decent restaurants and a great coffee shop.  Altogether a fun stay.