Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - Crawdads and Wet Conditions

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.

Soon after the warehouse, we trekked through the streets and saw the small local bookstores, restaurants, and even an old restored movie theatre! We learned the importance of keeping local businesses alive so money can stay in the town rather than opening a franchise where 90% of the money goes to the corporation. People overlook small towns to move into booming cities, but with this associated economic migration, historical towns like Buchanan die.

 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