Day 5 of the Expedition:
After
waking up from a perfect bed of soft grass under our tents, we chowed down on
some cheese grits and peaches and began to prepare for our tour of the small
town of Buchanan. Harry Gleason, Buchanan’s restoration town manager, started
us in the Wilson Warehouse, one of the oldest buildings in town. There we
learned about the history of the past residents and how the warehouse was
managed in the early 1800s. Buchanan used to be an early capital for bustling
commerce where goods would even be transported all the way to Richmond.
Buchanan lost its luster when the railroads were being built over the canal,
which led people to move to Roanoke.
Our tour of
Buchanan had ended, but we still had much to tidy up before we continued our
expedition. We packed up all our tents, gear, and food into the canoes and
paddled on to our next destination: Breeden Bottom just 8 miles away. There
were a few class two rapids along the way, but all of us managed to soar
through them with no trouble. We only stopped twice: once for our delicious
lunch of tortillas and plentiful toppings, and then we stopped after our
winding class two rapid into an eddy at the bottom. A storm was passing by, so
we waited it out there by surfing the rapid and savagely consuming our snack
bucket. Bringing out our inner child, we played with a couple crawfish and let
them pinch us. We made it to our campsite just an hour before another short
storm hit us, but it soon passed so we could make a large pot of nutritious
chili. Our night concluded by a little self-reflecting on our journey thus far and
sharing ideas of what businesses we would open in a small river town as we
cooked s’mores.
– Harrison and Alex
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