We r-u-n-n o-f-t

The weird thing was that when people asked The Pie and I where we were headed last weekend, we'd say, "Charleston."

To which the interested party would say, "Ooooh, that's nic.."

"West Virginia."

"Oh.... why?"

Well, we like it.  Something about a city on a river.  People that are slightly more like the ones we grew up around in Ohio than the ones we reside close to now in Charlotte.

Yeth, it's a bit of shame that certain things there have fallen into a sad state of affairs.  Litter is pretty bad.  The consumption of Mountain Dew is high.  It's a diamond in the (very) rough.  It seems like a city with some history.  Basically, a slightly nicer version of Youngstown, OH with water.

But the place feels very... unnnnhh... "America."

We went straight to the Kanawha State Forest when we got there.  The Pie went on a trail run.  I went for a ride.

I hate to say it, but I got lost... in the sense that I came off my intended route, pushed up a trail I would have wanted to ride down, went looking for an off-the-map trail, and came upon this:

Fallen trees from a recent storm.  Big.  Many.  The slope on either side was silly.  I had to go down the hill without my bike, break limbs until I had a sorta clear path, went back, grabbed my bike, got it most of the way, kinda pitched it the rest of the way... and then moved on.  I then found myself off my map, turned back towards where I thought I might find myself again, made my way to Black Bear, went down, committed to finding Wildcat Ridge, once again found myself unsure of my location, guessed my way along.. and found myself where I wanted to be.

I made it back about twenty minutes before the time I had told The Pie to start worrying.  We drove into town, checked in, went on a walk about, found food at a brewery, and then found this:

A concert down by the river with decent music, incredible people-watching, beer, shirtless men dancing, and t-shirt sling-shotting.

The next day was more walking about and seeing things and eating and drinking and watching things float by.

And noticing things we ain't seen here before in our previous trips about town.

Another mellow day of being strangers in a strange land, and the next morning, one final hike in the Kanawha State Forest before returning to normalcy.

Normal for us anyways.

And back to the grind and work and "training" and blogging and "watching what I eat."