Immigrant Signatures

We're just outside of Cumberland, Md. on a secluded hillside staying with Teddy Griese and her husband Frank. Teddy's son Derrick is a student of mine and he insisted that we stay with his mom on our journey through Cumberland. We are so pleased that we did. Last night, Frank met us downtown at the old railroad depot where the C and O ends and drove us to their house in this beautiful green valley. We are in incredibly beautiful country. Teddy and Frank have fed us well and Frank has taught us about much of the local history and culture and we feel very fortunate to have met them and shared an evening of laughter in their house.All the way up the C and O canal trail, I have seen the remnants of Irish workers. Catholic churches such as St. Peter's in Harper's Ferry, WV stand tall in every canal town. The stone aqueducts that carried the canal over the tributaries, with beautiful arches, let us know about the masonry skills of the immigrants. More than anything else, though, the Paw Paw tunnel south of Cumberland, about 2/3 of a mile long, will stay with me. We walked our bicycle through the entire canal, admiring the millions of bricks that form its interior arch.......and wondering about the work and the men who built it. They thought they could do it in 4 years, but it took them 22. As we approached the tunnel entrance, an adolescent boy greeted us wearing a straw hat. For a second, I thought he must have been a ghost from the 19th century as he yelled, "It's dark in there!" Boys worked the entrances of the tunnels, hanging lanterns to alert incoming boats that the narrow tunnel was "occupied." We passed many bicyclists and children on hikes, mostly quiet in reverence to this incredible experience. My reverence was for the workers, I could almost feel their hands on each brick as we walked, could feel each blast, each worker walkout, each inter-ethnic fight. My radar for the history of the Irish in America has widened on this trip. Immigrant workers leave a different kind of signature. Instead of portraits or journals, they leave the structures shaped by their backs and hands. The C and O is haunted by their voices, working in the isolation of 19th century appalachia, slapping the mosquitoes, blasting rock. As we ride, I offer my sweat to them in a humble show of solidarity.At the railroad town of Paw Paw, I had the bad idea to take hwy. 51 to Cumberland instead of the towpath trail. We had heard that the section between Paw Paw and Cumberland is bad and the road on the map didn't appear to wander far from the river. We quickly learned that we were in for serious hills, very steep, and when we descended back to the river 5 miles later, we were both very happy to get back on the trail, which we took all the way to Cumberland. Halfway there, we stopped at a popular fishing hole along the canal and talked with some of the families out fishing. It was a quiet and peaceful place bathing in the laughter of children. Gabriela took pictures. We said our goodbyes to the C and O canal towpath.

Mud, Mosquitos and Whispers of the Past

Our trail cycling has not exactly been the serene, laid back ride we expected, but has definitely been filled with adventure and insight.

Jim's brother Greg dropped us of at the W and OD (Washington and Old Dominion) rails to trails. It was a lovely paved trail, heavily trafficked with bikers and runners in spots. We took that for about 18 miles and then wound our way from Leesburg, VA to the ferry across the Potomac River into Whitesburg, MD were we started on the C and O (Chesapeake and Ohio) tow path. We were thrilled to be on the beautiful, wooded, calm bike trail... oh, the easy life of trail riding, or so we thought.

On C and O trail, we bike where mules and horses pulled long thin boats up canals. This 185 mile system of canals, locks and aqueducts were dug by Irish, German and English immigrants in pretty horrific conditions to shuttle coal and other items between Cumberland, MD and DC. Digging was started in 1828 and took 22 years to complete. The trail is next to the Potomac River that provided the water to the canals and was our constant companion while we were on the trail.

Our time off in DC had been well timed as it rained while we were on break, the result of this, however, was that the trail was very muddy. This meant slogging through puddles and mud holes and catching my breath as we slid on to drier ground. In the midst of the mud we had two trailer tire flats and our chain came off, not easy to put back on when covered in mud. Much of the former canals are now standing water that we discovered during our repairs, are wonderful breading grounds for mosquitoes.

That night we made it into Harper's Ferry, WV just as it began to rain. We carried our bike and trailer up the spiral stair case and had a glorious walk over the bridge in town. Harper's Ferry was a magical place for us. The Appalachian Trail runs right through the town, so we met folks who had been walking for over 1000 miles from Georgia and had over 1500 to go to reach Maine. We stayed in a little in Inn and ate on the porch overlooking the hillside historical town.

In the morning we went to several museums and learned that Harper's Ferry was home to one of the first African-American colleges in addition to the location of one of W.E.B. DuBois's Niagara Movement meetings. A trip to Harper's Ferry would not be complete with out viewing the sites of John Brown's occupation of a US arsenal in opposition to slavery that led to his hanging.

We carried our bike and trailer back down the stair case on hoped on the trail to meet up with my sister and her family, Matt, Sydney and Bailey in Williamsport (they were on their way down from Toronto to visit folks in DC).

We need to get on the road, so we'll post pictures and share more once we find another place to access the Internet.
upper L- Bailey, Matt, Tasha, Sydney, Jim and Gabriela during a brief meet up in Williamsport
lower L- Tia G with twins. Right- Jim and Gabriela upon arrival in Harper's Ferry infront of our Inn.

Back on the Bike Tomorrow

R- AFSC DC staff Aura Kanegis, Alissa Wilson, Sara Ibrahim, Carl Roose, Kitty Dana and Gabriela (not pictured Jessica Roach and Raed Jarrar).

L-Jackson du Pont (Jim's godson), Jim, Reesey du Pont and Gabriela

We've had a couple of days off bike to relax and connect with family and friends. It's been lovely to hang out with Lammot duPont (whose hotel room we started in in Knoxville) and Wendy Taylor and their kids Reesey and Jackson (Jim's godson). Tonight we'll stay at Jim's brother Greg and wife Tina's to put together the bike again and read Rachel and Allison a bedtime story. Yesterday we took the metro into DC and saw my grandma's cousin Janie Leighton and the AFSC DC staff. It has been fun to visit AFSC staff through the regions we are traveling.

Tomorrow we get back on the bike and head on the C&O rails to trails to Pittsburgh and, to be honest, I am excited to get back on the bike, nearly as much as I was to have a break two days ago. There is something amazing about being outside most of the day, peddling along, seeing life at a slower pace and drinking in ways people live and survive in this vast landscape.

Travel by bicycle entices all the senses. There are the obvious physical demands, but there are also the sensations and smells that are missed at faster pace. As we traveled along the pavement, a cool, damp wave of wind let me know that a waterfall or small stream was just up ahead. There are of course the less pleasant smells of not so recent road kill that reflect the violence of car transportation. But these smells too, if depicted soon enough, can guide a cyclist in knowing that moments up the road, it will be time to swerve to avoid the carnage.

As I reflect on our time in TN, KY, WV and VA, the most striking commonality was people's immense generosity. Everyday we encountered kind souls who were open to helping strangers and you have caught glimpses of some of them in each of our earlier posts.

Lingering with me as we relax sans bike in a more urban setting, are the echos of the impact of our resource extraction. While logging continues along side mining in many of the hollers we visited, mining companies contract out the clear cutting pre- strip mining and mountain top removal. It is against the law to put the trees in the valley fill that is dumped into former streams and valleys, but in most cases rather than utilizing the timber, it is burned. There are regulations to require mining companies to "restore" the contour of the mountain they extract from, but Kenny highlighted that "variances" are sought and more often than not, in addition to destroying the mountain environment, mountain tops simple go missing.

I remember the struggle of the miners, those we met and those from days gone by at the Blair Mountain massacre and the many Harlan Country strikes. These struggles were absent from the sanitized version of what mining is like at the KY Coal Mining Museum in Benham, KY. There was one mention of a mine cave in, but it was billed as 'an act of God' and those who died in it as brave, patriot miners who were working hard risking their lives to get at the coal we needed. No mention of the fact that coal companies have cut corners on mine safety to increase their bottom line and often find it more affordable to pay fines rather than improve mine conditions. While mining equipment of years gone by lined cabinets, there was no display on company script, which miners were paid in and kept them indebted to the company store and homes. When we asked the docents why there was no discussion on the labor union struggles, they said they were looking into putting that into the museum, but "people don't like to hear about the bad times"(while the museum is run by the local historical society, much of its funding comes from coal companies).

So tomorrow hop back on the bikes for a different a new adventure. We will keep you posted on what awaits us.

L- Coal mining activities we saw from the road in KY, photo above on L- missing mountain top- after moutain top removal and post "reconstruction"

2nd photo down on right- Gabriela, Wendy, Lammot, Tina, Greg and Rachel

Finished with cars and mountains

Tina, Rachel, Greg and Allison Walsh and Jim and Gabriela.

We haven't had a chance to post in a while. We're in Falls Church, Va staying with my brother Greg and his wife Tina and daughters Allison and Rachel. We arrived yesterday into Harrisonburg, Va around 4 pm after a beautiful 54 mile ride along Hwy 42. We are finished with the heavy duty mountains and had nothing but "normal" hills, which were all easy to negotiate after experiencing the worst that Appalachia has to offer over the past twelve days. We had a wonderful stay with my cousin Bill Thompson, his wife Wendy, and their 3 yr old twin daughters Riley and Casey. The twins kept reminding us of our nieces Sidney and Bailey and then while we were out to dinner, I received a phone call with Bailey singing happy birthday to me. It made my day. It was a great thing to spend an evening and morning with Bill and Wendy. I grew up with nearly 40 first cousins and so I never had the chance to know any of them very well. Although I saw Bill at every family function, this was really the first chance that I ever had to talk with him and to see his world. We are so grateful for their hospitality and warmth.

Harrisonburg was also the first place that we noticed any Latino presence in 500 miles. Bill shared with us that Harrisonburg has many poultry plants that employ Latino immigrants and that many in the community are very hostile toward them. These Appalachian states are perhaps the last places left in the US where there doesn't seem to be any visible Spanish-speaking community. We hope to learn more about this as we make our way up the Potomac River.

My birthday was an amazing day, as was the day after that. We made it to Marlinton, Wv and left the trail there. After eating and doing laundry, we decided to try to make it to Warm Springs, Va, about a 31 mile stretch. We left Marlinton at 4:20, thinking that we had plenty of time for the ride. We had no idea. Two and a half serious mountain passes later, we limped into Warm Springs a little before 8 pm completely exhausted. The climbs were long and steep. We have finally mastered the descents and it works well: go slow, brake often, watch for traffic.....and most importantly, stop every half mile or so to allow the wheel rims to cool...having been overheated by the braking. This is the cause of a couple of our flats and we worked together to solve this problem, it felt great. Warm Springs was inviting, touristy, a tiny hamlet nestled into the side of a mountain. As I walked the bike past a man, he shouted, "you are learning the lesson of Warm Springs, everything is uphill!" He's right. The Bed and Breakfast was incredibly comfortable, we took a dip in the pool before dinner and ate in an old gristmill with an enormous water wheel, built around 1900. Dinner was the greatest reward for our exhausting trek: pasta in garlic and olive oil with veggies, Salmon, a delicious salad, and blackberry cobbler for dessert. The bottle of red wine that Gabriela picked out made me delirious. As we stumbled out of bed the next day, I looked back at the mountains we had crossed and couldn't believe it. It's now easy to understand why this region is so isolated while being so close to so many major metropolitan areas. The next holler only 2 miles as the crow flies, but it might as well be in another country.

I want to reach back and share one more story about West Virginia. On the morning that we got our ride out of the State Park near Pineville toward Beckley, we stopped at a "bicycle shop" along the road. It turns out that this shop was in this guy's garage. He had parts and tools and called it a bicycle shop. We needed our brakes looked at and our gears adjusted and "Bo" was a wiz with the bike. This man, around 50 years old, is clearly very skilled with bicycle repair. We were also lucky because Bo has been out of the area for the past 2-3 years and just returned recently. He did a tour in Iraq as part of the WV National Guard. "M-wraps," he told us, "do you know what they are?" Transport vehicles with loads of armor to guard against roadside bombs. "I fixed them, and got them out to our soldiers............those things saved many lives." I wanted to avoid the overtly political questions about the war, but Gabriela jumped right in:

"How are things in Iraq?"

"We got ourselves in a big ole' mess, but we have to finish what we started" he replied. "We need to make sure our soldiers are safe."

That was about as far as it went, Bo wasn't very open to sharing, and we were at a loss for more and better questions. Behind Gabriela, I could see Bo's rifle leaning against the wall by the brake pads. The contrast made me smile. When Bo returned from Iraq, he was laid off from his job and went to the flood zone to work to help those whose communities were devastated. Bo is the first person we have met this entire trip who shares with us a love for bicycling.

"Be careful, you go over a hill here and before you know it you're doing forty five," he warned.

I was tempted to ask him about the road ahead but I have learned not to, to just let it come to us.....that when locals tell me about the hills I make them out to be more than they are in my head. I'd rather now know and meet them when they come. Bo still wears his camo military pants and tan t-shirt as he works on bicycles in his garage. His wife drives a school bus, which sits just outside the shop. We sat and talked with them for a while, sharing stories until I felt an urge to get on the road. This place--and the way that people here talk to you--as a way of sucking you in, slowing the pace, story leading to story, until hours have passed. It's as if you look down one day and grass has grown in around your feet and you are talking with a new twang and three weeks later you're still listening to the same guy finish his story. Inside of me, deep down, I long for this pace, for Gabriela and I to one day escape the mad pace that we live by and let the grass grow around our feet, to weave stories and drink sweet tea and look at lightning bugs.

Back in the Saddle

So I got back in the saddle full force. We left Marlinton, WV and had some intense hills, but I did not catch a ride and we worked together to make it up and down several passes. Three of our flat tires in KY and WV were due to our brakes over heating on hair pin steep curves. Thus, our new strategy when we have a heavy grade down hill with lots of curves that puts a lot of strain on the brakes is to stop every half to three fourths mile to let the rims cool down. It definitely makes the down hill take longer (although it keeps us from changing tubes), but the new strategy seems to be working as we have had not new flats (two whole days with out one).

Yesterday we put in 54 hard miles crossing into the open mountain valleys of VA. It is very different country from KY and WV where mountains are right on top of each other and communities squeeze in the little hollers. Here the rolling mountains are nestled next to big valleys. The contrasts are not just the terrain. Grazing cattle, fancy bed and breakfasts and elegant old court houses greet us as we come around a bend. There was no room for cattle where we have been, instead home gardens filled most flat land areas, and no sheeshe spas anywhere to be found. Instead most people are struggling to make ends meet in place where their natural environment has been extensively extracted to maintain the resource intersive lifestyles we all live.

After a glorious and grueling ride, we ended our day at Gristmill b&b in Warm Springs, VA to celebrate Jim's b-day with an elegant dinner and bottle of wine (yes, Jim was tipsy after one glass). While poverty and struggle are hidden in these mountain valleys, not around each curve and ascent as in Harlan County, KY and Logan County, WV, the whispers of the voices of the many generous people we have met in that rugged environment ride with us as we continue our journey.

Today we've climbed more mountains and are using a computer at a cafe in Goshen, VA, but I wanted to let you know that I'm doing the mountains again. We've got lots of great photos we'll post when we have chance. As we decended into Goshen, Jim hollered "Laaaaaaaaaaaaand a goshen" in honor of Grandma Billie.

In Goshen, VA with our new found friends of the Crazy 8s motorcycle club comparing bikes.

42 Trips Around the Sun

Leaving Marlinton, WV this afternoon hoping to make it to Warm Springs, Va and a B and B for my birthday. 56 miles of the Greenbriar River trail was an adventure. We camped in the most serene place alongside the river last night, but I lied awake most of the night thinking that every noise I heard was a bear trying to eat us. I was ready to do my famous duckunder on the bear in case I had to, but now am tired as we enjoy this small old logging town. We're getting close to my cousin Bill in Harrisonburg, Va and then onto Washington DC.
Along the trail, we saw remnants of old logging towns gone bust. One had the old bank and its safe still sitting in the middle of the woods.........an echo to the dollar-mad culture of that era. One still had a dozen or so houses. The stores were all gone, as was the post office, and the old bank sat like a brick coffin. We found a half a dozen people drinking beer and playing horseshoes and we stayed with them for a couple of hours. I lost in horseshoes and we learned from Jason how his great grandfather used to own "every watershed in the region" before selling it during the Depression for $3800. His friends had a squirrel as a pet, and we somehow knew that we needed to move on.
We have met some bicycle tourists in this town riding the trail. They can't believe that we started in Knoxville. I'm 42 today, reflecting on my good fortune to be as active as I am with the partner that I have, breathing in this country and its hidden treasures like oxygen.

Serenity Along the Greenbrier Trail

Getting onto the Greenbrier trail was a shock to our system, in a good kind of a way. No more coal trucks or windy roads with no shoulder that I hold on to the handle bars for dear life as we ascend into the next holler. Instead we found ourselves on a rails to trails that travels along side the Greenbrier River passing beautiful forests and a few has been logging towns.

While we saw few other cyclist on the trail yesterday, we did encounter a mama groundhog and her babies, deer drinking at the stream and an awe inspiring eagle. The trail map indicated where food and water, along with campsites were located. However, it turns out the info needs to be updated. We hoped off the trail into the formerly booming log town of Renick, WV to find the store to get our dinner. While logging (and mining) are still going on in the area, the communities are dying off and stores have closed. A group of folks drinking beers and playing horse shoes gave us some much appreciated Gatorade and Jason offered to drive us to the closest convenience store- a beautiful drive through the rolling hills of West Virginia.

Jason's ride provided us with local gas station/food store bounty of bread, peanut butter and jelly, cheese, 2 oranges and a bunch of trail bars- a feast we would have missed where it not, once again, for the gracious generosity of the locals. After throwing a few horseshoes and meeting Jason's friend's pet squirrel, we hoped back on the trial and rode another 10 miles to a magically beautiful campsite on the river, which provided us with a nice bathing spot. After eating our WV convenience store feast we climbed into our tent and reviewed the past few days riding. Jim reminds me of every curve and face along the road with the guide of the map and I show him the pictures I took from the stoker seat on the bike and we remember the amazing people we have met, things we have learned and how we have grown together.

This morning is Jim's 42nd birthday!!! we woke to the sounds of birds. Ate our deletable breakfast of pb and j and hit the trail. It is a 2% uphill grade on gravel, so it still keeps our legs working hard. A few miles in we cooled down in with a lovely river skinny dip. We are now in Marlinton, WV- doing some much needed laundry and in a few minutes getting back on the road (done with the trial).

A few evenings back after biking just a bit too long to find a place to stay, having a few too many coal trucks pass us and one to many flats (we are now at 7 flats in 9 days), I had a minor break down. I realized that the down hills were no longer fun and I preferred the uphills and missed the comfortable shoulder of Hwy 119. Holding me tightly, Jim comforted me and we decided to slow the trip down a bit. Thus, we will be catching a bus 100 miles or so out of DC and in the upcoming big hill we have ahead of us, I might catch a ride down if I am feeling unsafe.

Jim is amazing in the captain seat. He's been good at slowing down the down hill speeds and we stop when we feel like it. As we have on every trip, we learn about ourselves and each other along with the amazing county and people we see.

L- head lamps on ready to go through the tunnel on the trail on right

Below- former booming logging town of Renick, WV

More Memorable People

Two more memorable people we have met along this trail are Kenny King of Logan, West Virginia, and Trae Elswick of Fayettville, WV. Kenny took a morning off of work to meet us on a cold morning in Logan and drive us up to Blair Mtn, the site of an armed battle in 1921 between UMWA miners and hired company guards. As many as 10,000 armed miners marched to this place to seek revenge after sheriff Sid Hatfield, a pro union lawman was murdered in Matewan by company agents. The miners intended to seek justice and to organize the miners in Mingo county. They were met near the peak of Blair mtn by a couple of thousand heavily armed and entrenched company guards. Machine guns and the superior positions of the guards drove the miners back down Blair mtn, but the UMWA was able to organize the miners a few years later. Several dozen miners died in this battle, planes dropped crude bombs on the miners, and when they learned that the US army was coming to put down the "insurrection" and charge them with treason, they lost their guns and made their way back to their families.

Kenny met us at a nearby 7-11 and drove us to the pass. From there we walked to the site of the guard entrenchments near the peak, which can still be easily made out through the brush. We could barely keep up with Kenny as he raced up and down the mountainside with his metal detector in search of the metal remnants of this battle so long ago. We found a few old "3006" shell casings and holding the cool metal in my hands made the battle feel real. Kenny told us of the local struggle to resist mountaintop removal, to organize miners, to gain any kind of voice in this land that is owned and controlled by coal companies. It will be hard to forget the thick woods and steep mountainsides of that place and to imagine what it would take to make ten thousand poor miners leave their work and families to march hundreds of miles through terribly difficult terrain in search of justice. Don't forget Blair mountain.

We needed a ride from Beckley to Lewisburg, WV., about 50 miles. The steep hills and coal trucks were taking their toll on our nerves and it was time for the serene Greenbriar River trail, which begins in Lewisburg. As we fixed a flat tire along the roadside, along came Trae Elswick in his pickup truck. He was on his way home from doing some work in Gilbert, a small town in Mingo county devastated by the floods of a week ago. Trae was also transporting his friend "Flash" home after his third stint in rehab for alcoholism. The first thing that Trae said to us was, "welcome to wild and wonderful West Virginia!" He is different from most of the people we have met thus far, a 30 s0mething educated man who works in the tourist-driven rafting world near Fayetteville. Trae was on his way to Fayetteville, but immediately went to work finding us a ride to Lewisburg. He must have made ten calls on his cell phone to friends, all of which had nicknames: "chicken" "schlong" "flash"
No one seemed to be able to help us so he decided to take us to Fayettville and felt sure that we'd find a ride there. We did. His friend Steve Bershire was able to drive us to Lewisburg, but not before a lively hour in Trae's truck listening to stories of his adventures..........driving by the WV royal gorge, driving us to numerous waterfalls near his house. We arrived at his house and he showed us his creekside yard, a beautiful spot in a canyon that led down to the New River and the gorge. Trae was a kind of godfather figure of middle west virginia, dispensing favors and calling in those who owed him. He even called us on our way to Lewisburg to tell us where to eat and who to find who could help us there. "I'm a problem-solver," he said, "that's what I do." Trae was just about the most progressive person we have met in WV........eagerly sharing his ideas about environmentalism, gay rights, food quality, mountaintop removal. He referred to us as "crunchy," telling those he called that he, "had a groovy husband and wife from Colorado on their bicycle, good folk, who are willing to throw down some cash to get to Lewisburg tonight." Trae's views were not all liberal. One of his dreams is to open, "West Virginia's first and only organic food and gun store..............they're right about most things, but not about guns," he added as we said our goodbyes, "I love you guys...............................Bershire is going to take care of you.......and Bershire, you come see me when you get back and we'll talk about how I can return the favor."
L- Mining at Blair Mountain
above R- Jim with Jim wearing a counter hat to the "clean coal" message

ATVs and Labor Wars

Here we are in Lewisburg, WV………nothing at all like the places we have seen during the past week. We sat down to dinner at the Stardust Café and I realized that we were in a different milieu when our waitress responded to my request for iced tea with this: “do you want sweet tea, regular tea, or raspberry herbal tea?” The menu boasted of organic ingredients and the coffee beans were free trade. In any on the coal towns, this would be a foreign language. Life there is hard, the people are poor, survival is the goal, a good laugh is joy. I realized in the Stardust Café that I will miss coal country. I won’t miss the scary coal trucks that shake the earth or the narrow, shoulderless roads, but I will miss a kind of authenticity that I found in every single person we met. I will miss the startled responses that we received by people on their front porches as we rode past. I will miss the look in peoples’ eyes when we explain to them what we are doing and why. I won’t miss ATVs but I will miss the old American-made cars with dents and the feeling that America’s most forgotten war—its Labor War—took place all around us and remains ingrained somehow in the collective consciousness of a people. I won’t miss menus with nothing but fried food, but I will miss Matewan, Blair Mountain, Harlan, Brookside, Williamson, Logan, Man, Pikeville, and the look on the faces of people when coal is mentioned. I won’t miss the sounds of blasting on mountain tops all around me, but I will miss the downturned faces of a humble people. In these places, this coal country, there is no access to any major newspapers, no access to healthy food, very limited access to the internet or even to cell phone coverage. Fast food, WalMart, Pentecostal churches, and pop television rule coal country…….the mall is the festival……..and hopes of escaping are only dreams.

Tomorrow morning, we head out on the Greenbriar River trail………….a 77 mile rail-to-trail that heads NE from Lewisburg, WV. This will calm our nerves and allow us some psychic rest from the climbs and descents. Gabriela has been incredibly strong, both in her legs and in her spirit.