I'd Walk a Mile, or Ride 100 Miles for a Camel

 Shirley, crack open a new iced down barrel of beer, 'cause I gotta a
story that no one's gonna believe....'cept I got a picture across the
street to back it up.

Started a few weeks ago when my long time friend and co-worker, Jimmy
called and asked me if I wanted to ride on Thursday.  Weather looked
good so I said "sure".

As usual, he wanted me to pick the route.  Went north out of Roanoke Va
on 220, through Botetourt County, into Allegahny Co and into the city of
Clifton Forge.  Now both of us have been here before and knew of a great
little restaurant.  Clifton Forge sort of makes me think of "Mayberry"
with the layout of the town and how friendly the people are.  We stopped
at a restaurant called the "Club Car" which is themed after the dining
cars of the old passenger trains.  Food was great, service was better,
and the price quite reasonable.

We hit the road and took a short ride on I-64 to Low Moor and then hit
the back roads and twistys.  Followed Craig's creek for awhile.  Left
Allegahny County and entered Craig County.  Now if you look up "rural
county" in the dictionary, there is probably a map of Craig Co. next to
it.  I think its total population is 5000 with the county seat of New
Castle having a population of 179.

Anyhow, here we were, twisting, turning, upshifting, downshifting, so
far away from anything we were enjoying yesterdays sunshine, and just a
few miles out of New Castle, I spot something in a field up the road.
At a distance, it looked sort of like a big pile of hay, except when I
got closer, it started to move.  Here we were out in the middle of a
rural county in Virginia and there was this camel (well technically a
Dromaderry).  Not out in the desert, not in the Middle East, not at a
zoo.  Deep in the mountains and valleys of western Virginia.

Now fast forward a week or so and the spousal unit wants to go for a
ride.  She likes the twisties plus a place to eat in  Paint Bank, Craig
County called the Swinging Bridge Restaurant.  I highly recommend this
place also.  Very biker friendly, good food, great service and
reasonable prices.  Anyhow, as we were eating, I told her about the
camel I had seen earlier.  She was skeptical until I said something to
our waitress who verified my story.  Anyhow, it was obvious, despite the
threatening clouds, I was going to need to take a side trip off our
planned route and show her the camel.  We located it, she got the
picture, and we spent the next hour dodging and outrunning the
thunderstorms that were popping up around us.

(t-o) Andy

 
Thanks for th e drink Ange
sounds like a good litle ride

kickstart

 

Sounds like a good ride. We had a guy between here and Topeka ,KS right off
70 had a heard of about 20 out in a pasture. It is a strange site driving
down I-70 and seeing a heard of camels. He sold em all a couple years ago,
kind of miss em when we go east.

Dale R

 Dale R wrote:


Perhaps the one I saw came from there.