TransAmerica Cycle 2013, day 13

In the morning our tents are soaking wet with dew, and inside with condensation; when we pack them up the footprint/tarp things are again crawling with slugs. For breakfast there is boiled eggs and pre-cooked bacon. I'm the last one packed up but Dan has to change a tube due to a slow puncture so I'm not the last one ready to roll, which we do at something like 9 a.m. We stop after only 6 miles at the first gas station we find for an ice cream and soda break, which takes way longer than it should but hey whatever today's gonna be a shorter day than yesterday at least.

The first part of our day is mostly uphill, but it's thru a national forest with plenty of shade and the gradient is very gentle. Yellow butterflies flutter like early autumn leaves amidst the green of spring. (Their carcasses also, sadly, litter the road. At some point Anna Faye and Ben witness one get creamed by a passing truck.) I'm the slowest up the hill but the alone time in the lush forest is quite nice. At some point we pass the hill-walking cyclists again, as they stayed in Wytheville last night and passed us early in the morning. They're only going as far as some campground in this forest today so it's doubtful we'll run across them again--but, hey, you never know.

It's a long and wonderful downhill after that climb and for lunch we pull over by a stream and eat on its banks, sometimes dipping our feet in the swift, cold water. It's another climb after that thru similar roads and another luxurious downhill. At some point we're passed by a group of motorcyclists but we catch up to them at the bottom of the hill where they'd stopped at an old, abandoned gas station for a snack break. They offer us ice-cold sodas (I take a sprite), cookies, and candy, and we stay with them and chat for a while. Their kindness makes our day. Turns out they're from Kentucky and some of them actually live right along the route we'll be taking. They give us phone numbers and say to call when we're a few towns over, and they'll come out to meet us with more food or something. It's people like these that make this trip worth it. Should be seeing some of them again in about two weeks!

There's a nice coasting downhill thru a small town and then a winding, curving uphill thru another forest. The gradient is gentle enough that I can take it at 7-10 mph. Dan shoots up ahead of me on the climb but I stay ahead of the others all the way until the wicked-awesome downhill starts. It's bendy and all downstream; I go something like 30-35 mph, taking a few turns a bit too fast and having to be careful not to scrape my pedals on the ground while leaning over for them. I didn't manage to film much of it at all but I will say that was my favorite stretch of road so far, and it's gonna take a lot to top it.

When we reach Damascus the first thing Dan and Jenn do is get ice cream, and I get a 24 oz sprite and down it quickly. We sit outside in the shade for a long time, talking, me writing up day 12 to post. We take a nice, long, leisurely break, buying a few bits of gear (sleeping bag liners for Anna Faye and Ben, serving spoon and spatula for chef Travis, etc) and chatting with shop owners. We spend some time trying to find a place to camp tonight either in Meadowview or Hayter's Gap, but nothing pans out. We consider staying in Damascus but ultimately decide to press on to Meadowview and see what we can find.

The hills roll thru sun-stained, stereotypical farmland from Damascus to Meadowview. The first stretch is on a kinda busy road but once you turn off onto a little 1.5 lane county road it's really nice. We string out along the road quite a bit, Travis, Dan, and Jenn up ahead where I can't quite see them, Ben and Anna Faye behind where I can't see them, either. At some point we almost stop and knock on someone's door to ask if we can camp in their field but a bit of intuition tells us to press on to Meadowview proper. Sure enough, when we're cycling thru their little downtown a truck passes and a gentleman leans out the window and asks if we're tired and ready to set down for the night. We say yes, and he offers up Mount Carmel Christian Church to us, telling us how to get there before driving off to get a key and come back to open the door.

He's an elder of the church and says he usually offers their building to cyclists when he sees them and we thank him profusely as he opens it up to us. There's a covered pavilion outside to leave our bikes in and inside there's bathrooms and a kitchenette. We hang our tents out to dry while we eat supper at the pavilion--hot dogs, rice, peas, carrots, and black beans--and the boys have a philosophy discussion I'm too tired to really join in on. My stomach is still bothering me something awful and I actually throw up a little at some point, so I go in to lay down before my whole dinner comes back up. Can't afford to lose calories like that on a trip like this.

While inside I discover a tick on my ankle and yank him off. Scary stuff.

We put our dry tents away instead of setting them up and decide to sleep inside so that we don't have to pack up wet gear in the morning. We set up in one of their classrooms, rolling out our sleeping mats and bags. I go to type this blog and my word processor on my phone crashes and deletes everything, so I get really upset (that's the 3rd time it's done that) and give up blogging for the night. I've now downloaded a new note-taking app so hopefully that works better.

There's a pretty steep, tough-looking climb coming up tomorrow--wish me luck.

pax.

--
today's numbers
distance: 53 mi
riding time: 5 hrs 5 min
avg speed: 10.4 mph
max speed: 37.2 mph
odo: 684.4 mi
--

[picture below of mount carmel christian church, a one-storey brick building topped with a cross]

TransAmerica Cycle 2013, day 12

We get up pretty early in the morning with the goal to be rolling by 8 a.m. It's made a bit easier by not having to pack up tents and sleeping bags first. Breakfast for me is almond milk and fruit; the others eat leftovers from the potluck last night and things like that. Carla watches and helps us pack our bikes up, and Brian rolls up at 8:05 on the dot. After a few more pictures and farewells we head off.

Brian escorts us for our first 20 miles--probably the best part of the day. The hills are gentle and there's shade and running water. Brian usually stays up front with Dan but finds time to chat with each of us before peeling off back home. After we leave this last representative of Radford behind, we stop for second breakfast at the abandoned and kinda creepy-looking Pulaski Motel. All the doors are locked and chained and it seems like no one has been here in years; the sidewalks are crawling with little red bugs that Travis thinks are harmless spider mites. I make a dent in my new jar of chocolate peanut butter and put it on rice cakes. I'm starting to feel a little nauseated, but that won't become a big issue until later.

After 2nd breakfast we press on, and there's hardly any shade for a very long time. The predominant smells of the day are cow poo, skunk funk, and roadkill. Our path crosses over the highway several times because we follow county roads that parallel it to keep out of traffic, but quite a bit of traffic finds us anyway. There's long strings of gas stations and trucker stops all in a row here that's why. We pull into one at some point and I have a grape soda which is super refreshing on a boiling day like today.

At some point we come across two other touring cyclists, who are on their way to San Francisco, where they're from. They walk their bikes up any hill that I'd be using my granny gear on, and I find myself wondering, how are they going to make it over the Rockies and thru Nevada etc if they have to walk their bikes up Virginia hills? But their whole thing is "Cycle Slowly" (the name of their blog on crazy guy on a bike, iirc). They only do about 30 miles a day, they say--provided there's a place to stay; otherwise, they press on. (Such as doing the whole blue ridge parkway and then some, something like 80 miles, in one sitting!)

After I while a start to have serious muscle pain/weakness and I slow down way behind everyone in the breezeless heat. I'm worried about heat stroke a little bit, so I drink a lot of water and rest in the shade periodically. Still, tho', the nausea and muscle pain persists. It's related to my autoimmune disease, I think--it's not muscle soreness or muscle burning like working hard, it's something that happens to me from time to time and usually on those days I just stay in bed until it's over but I can't because I have to cycle. The hills today aren't quite as steep as what we've been doing but they're taller and last longer so I can't ride my momentum up them, and there's no breeze and no shade and the sun is boiling us so it's really hard. At some point I pull over by a duck and goose pond and just cry until I can pull myself together enough to follow and find the others again.

We finally stop for lunch in Wytheville, pulling into the shade of an abandoned shop front. All the stores we need--bike shop, camping goods store, gas station conbini--used to be here but are closed down now. I try to eat some clams for protein but they taste like fish poop and have the consistency of phlegm (ordinarily I like clams, but today my stomach won't have it) so I force down half the can, toss the rest and keep eating chocolate peanut butter on rice cakes. I take a really long time to eat because I'm dazed and in pain so while I eat Jenn, Dan, and Travis go to the post office to mail the key to Radford back home for safekeeping, along with some other things they'd been carrying but didn't actually need and didn't want to carry anymore.

Turns out we've just done 500 miles as a team, so we decide to go out for a couple drinks to celebrate. We only have about 20 miles left to go and it's only like 4 p.m. so we have time for a longer break. We find this log cabin restaurant place down the street and wait 10 minutes for it to open and go in and sit down. Everyone gets beers except Dan, who gets a Pepsi, and I get a hard cider. The decor of the place is really interesting and rustic and we have a nice time sitting there, me trying to gather some strength to continue without throwing up or giving up. I try to order another type of cider but when it comes it's just an apple-flavored beer, which is disappointing, but I don't want to deal with sending it back so I give it to Anna Faye and settle down with water.

I don't remember anything of the cycle beyond this except for latching on to Dan's back wheel as he acted the wind break for me, pulling me into Cedar Springs. I tuned everything else out but that wheel in order to actually make it to where we decided to camp that night. Except that where we thought the national, campable forest started wasn't and all we can see is POSTED: NO TRESPASSING signs. We go another 6 or 7 miles beyond where we wanted to stop and finally pass another abandoned, creepy, ivy-conquered house and decide to just camp in the flat area behind its barn because, well, who could possibly mind? The grass back there is tall and full of spiders which is hard for Jenn to take but we get our tents up and start on supper well before the light starts fading. We don't have water to cook with so Dan cycles down the street a bit to an inhabited house to beg a gallon of water off someone. Turns out it's an old lady living alone and Dan is pretty sure she's super scared of him but she does fill up our canteen in her kitchen while he waits outside on the porch. Hot links, canned spinach, kidney beans, and rice it is. We eat our fill and then all retire to sleep. There's no phone signal and I'm exhausted so I crash pretty hard, waking up later only as it gets colder so that I can wiggle into my sleeping bag.

Tomorrow hopefully my muscles will calm down and I can actually enjoy myself.

pax.

--
today's numbers
distance: 67 mi
riding time: 6 hrs 37 min
avg speed: 10.1 mph
max speed: 37 mph
total trip: 631.3 mi
--

Today's featured guest cyclist:

Brian riding Flagondry

TransAmerica Cycle 2013, day 11

Today I roll out of bed at the sun-ripened hour of 9:30 a.m., and end up being the first up and moving about downstairs. For breakfast I eat three bowls of apple-cinnamon chex with almond milk. The others filter into the living room while I sit typing out the blog for day 10, and Carla comes at some point and makes coffee and we all drink some and relax together. Dan cooks the biscuits and sausage gravy; Travis and Dan look ahead at the maps and try to plan our next week's worth of mileages and camping spots. We're a touch behind schedule but not too badly, and we think we can make it with an average mileage of 60 miles a day and once-a-week rest days if we make up some distance once we hit the flat plains in Kansas and eastern Colorado (pre-Rockies). We won't have any more climbs like the one onto the blue ridge parkway for a while. While we're discussing our plans, Carla comes in and gives us each a little present: for Anna Faye a rose, for Ben a smiley face, for me and Travis two clownfish, for Jenn and Dan a sunflower. They're little stuff sacks that unfold into shopping bags. They weigh nothing and take up very little space; they're perfect for a trip like this!

When we finally find the will to move about, we pull out our tents and set them up in the sunny backyard to dry and air out. Then we introduce Jutta to our bikes before loading up her dishwasher with all our camping dishes and gathering three piles of stinky laundry to be loaded into the washing machine and later hung out to dry.

We have the keys to a six-seater SUV courtesy of Jutta, who is using another vehicle today, so we go to Wal*Mart to buy a few clothing items (a 2nd sports bra for me, off-day sandals for Travis, etc) and food. I get some more dark chocolate peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, and rice cakes to eat it on, and the rest of us get food for our next two communal dinners and breakfasts because there won't be much civilization for the next few days as far as we can tell from the maps. We try to find a bike shop but the one google gives us is only open on the weekends and the one across the street with a bicycle hanging above its awning moved to Blacksburg and their old space is now apparently a church. (Inside they tell us we can have the bike if we can get it down from there, haha. They haven't taken it down yet 'cause it's so hard to reach.) We don't have any other errands to run so we head back to the house and finish up our laundry, re-pack our tents, snack, and nap.

Brian comes over for a spell later in the afternoon to ask when we're headed out in the morning and we chat a while. Then at 7:00 the mayor of Radford, Bruce Brown, and his wife Karen come over, along with a big group of people who arrive bit by bit, bringing food and fellowship with them. There's a bucket of fried chicken and chocolate-peanut-butter buckeyes and a whole host of delicious-looking things that I didn't really pay attention to since I can't eat them due to my allergies. (I ate supper before everyone arrived.) Turns out Mayor Brown came over to present the Handlebarbarians with the key to the city of Radford. We graciously accept, with a little bit of fanfare, awed by the gesture. It's pretty special to me, considering I was born here. We all agree to mail it to Grandmamma and Granddaddy for safe-keeping when we have the chance, considering that without them we would never have known Jutta and none of this would be possible.

Everyone who came over is friendly and kind and we mingle and chat and talk about our trip so far and our plans for the trip ahead and our backgrounds and, well, a little bit of everything. I wish I could remember everyone's name but I'm not so good at that. I'll remember their faces, tho'. Maybe someday I'll come thru Radford again and see them. I really am touched by everyone's well-wishes and encouragement and camaraderie--that's a big part of what trips like this are all about.

When everyone has trickled out the door back home we look at some footage we've taken of the trip so far on Dan's GoPro and my ContourROAM, then bid goodbye to Jutta, who won't be here when we're stirring in the morning and preparing to go. There's no words to express our gratitude for this rest day, for our Rivendell. Hopefully Jutta--and Carla, too--understand the depth of our thanks, even if we can't say it enough. We wish nothing but the best for both of them, and for the entire town of Radford, VA. It's sad to leave so soon, but we've got 90% of our trip yet ahead of us.

Tomorrow will start early and last long. But I'll be ready. One more sleep in a real bed will be enough to get me thru another week of camping.

pax.

--
today's numbers
distance: 0 mi
riding time: 0 hrs 0 min
avg speed: 0 mph
max speed: 0 mph
odometer: 564.3
--

[below is a picture of the key to the city of Radford. It's about twice the size of a regular skeleton key with an "R" as the key part and the city's corporate seal in the handle; motto is "sic semper tyrannis"]

TransAmerica Cycle 2013, day 10

We had set our alarms for 6 a.m. but of course don't get up till like 7:30. Breakfast is chili beans and mandarin oranges out of cans, which I supplement with some gluten-free blueberry muffins I had picked up at Kroger in Lexington. We make sure everything inside the church is clean and tidy as we use their bathrooms one last time and then get going again. It's mostly downhill thru the Catawba valley until we reach a gas station and go in to get lunch there. Mostly everything is poisonous to me in there but I find starburst (there were no skittles... sadface) and a bag of BBQ cornchips labeled "gluten-free" so I grab those things and also a tub of cotton candy which I eat right then and there all at once because I can. For protein I'll have some canned herring in tomato sauce that I've been carrying around for a few days now.

We keep on cycling thru gentler rolling hills for 20 miles, me and Dan in the front with Jenn sometimes with us, powering up the small hills rather than gearing down to climb them. As long as you still have momentum by pedalling down the last hill in a higher gear, it's easier to crest the top of the next that way as long as they're not too tall. Dan gets in front to cut the wind for me and Jenn for a while and it's really easy to just tootle along in his slipstream at like 18 mph. At some point we see a live snake on the road and take pictures and Jenn gets a short video of it crawling thru the grass. Dan and I want to pick it up, but we're not sure what species it is so we refrain. Now that I think about it, tho', I think it was just a harmless corn snake. We'll look it up later.

After those 20ish miles it's time for lunch so we settle down in the first bit of shade we find, in-between a wooden fence and the quiet road we'd been on. There's a farmer a field over mowing grass--I assume for making hay. When we get back on the road the hills start rolling a bit taller and it's harder to keep up with Dan on the uphills. At some point a deer jumps in front of me and I inadvertently chase it down the road a ways because it decides to run along my trajectory before panicking back into the woods on the left. Poor thing.

Later on, we decide if we were all members of the Fellowship of the Ring which person everyone would be. Ultimately we decide that I'm Gimli, Dan is Legolas, Travis is Aragorn, Anna Faye is Frodo, and Jenn and Ben are Merry and Pippin, respectively. We don't have a Sam or a Boromir but none of us has a personality like them, so.

Before the significant uphill into Christiansburg we stop for another soda break and I get a sprite in a glass bottle from a tub of ice and pop the cap with a bottle opener attached to the tub and it's the most refreshing thing. They give us tap water for our water bottles too but it's really sour and tastes even more like minerals than most Virginia water so it's hard to drink. We then go up the hills into Christiansburg, passing straight thru on Depot & College streets and not stopping at all. A school bus passes Jenn just to try and turn right immediately after which is annoying 'cause if it had waited another 30 seconds behind her it wouldn't have had to come to a complete stop mid-turn to avoid running her over. When we reach route 666 (yes, yes, I know; it's actually a lot of really well-manicured 'burbs tho') the traffic lightens up and we press on to Radford.

The sun burns us all a little but we make it to Radford at a reasonable clip (the hills are a bit taller so I can't keep up with Dan and Jenn anymore) and follow the map onto the bike path in wildwood park. It's a nice bike path, mostly downhill until a small tunnel, and then when it ends we turn around and have to climb an obnoxiously steep hill to get onto the bridge to cross the New River. When we cross the river it's time to deviate from our trail in order to find our Rivendell--also known as Jutta's house.

Jutta (the j makes a y sound) is a close friend to our grandparents--the ones me, Jenn, Travis, and Anna Faye share in common--since before I was born. Last time I saw her I was a senior in college and Mama and I had come out to Radford to see where I was born (oh yeah, p.s., I was born in Radford, VA) and to see Blacksburg where she grew up and to hike the Cascades. Jutta put us up in her house and we had a wonderful weekend. Jutta then found us all on facebook, and since we started this trip has been the Handlebarbarians' biggest fan. When she discovered that we were going thru the New River Valley she offered to put us up for a rest day. Turns out her house is only something like 3 miles off our course. We gratefully accepted and decided that her house was our Rivendell--a place to rest and obtain provisions and make plans, but still really near to the beginning of the journey with the hardest parts of it yet to come.

We put in Jutta's address and follow the iPhone directions from the river to get there. As we approach, everything looks more and more familiar... then, miraculously, we're there! We knock on the door and there she is, Jutta, in all her gracious, welcoming glory, telling us to put our bikes on the back patio and to come inside and have orange gatorade and showers and a nice sit-down rest in air conditioning and it's the best thing. We all get clean and sit and chat and relax, meeting Carla, Jutta's sister visiting from Germany (also a lovely and kind and wonderful person to be with) and neighbor-friend Brian who's a racing cyclist and brings us an air mattress so that we all have a soft place to sleep and we talk about racing and he says he'll join us for a while in the morning on Thursday when we get started again. Jutta brings me two giant packets of skittles because she's been reading my blog and knows how addicted to them I am and it's the sweetest gesture (pun intended) and then we go out to a gourmet pizza place in Dublin, VA so the others can pig out on pizza and sandwiches and fried mac-n-cheese and I can drink wine and talk nonstop because everyone else's mouth is full of food, haha.

After dinner Jutta and I go grocery shopping for tomorrow and she gets the groceries as a donation for our tour, including zebra cakes for Jenn in honor of her bicycle being named Zebra Cake. I get some apple-cinnamon rice chex and almond milk for breakfast tomorrow and for the others we get biscuits and the stuff to make sausage gravy with. I also get a bit of stuff for dinner tonight, and eat it when we return. Then, it's bedtime. Time to sleep in a real bed and get up whenever I feel like it and lounge around eating and talking and blogging and whatever else needs done.

*Insert long sigh of relaxed relief here.*

pax.

--
today's numbers
distance: 51 mi
riding time: 5 hrs 21 min
avg speed: 9.5 mph
max speed: 35 mph
odometer: 564.3 mi
--

[picture below is of me climbing a hill on bike rothar, in a bit of blessed shade from the trees overhanging the road]

TransAmerica Cycle 2013, day 9

[author's note: if days are posted late or multiple days posted at once, it's due to lack of cell phone reception when the blog posts are written... we're gonna be passing thru a lot of low- or no-coverage areas so I apologize in advance for posting delays]

This morning for breakfast we have eggs, sausage, and a mix of cubed potatoes, onions, and peppers. It is hearty and wonderful, especially compared to yesterday's lack of breakfast. We're ready in an hour and a half and bid adieu to the haunted house but it takes another hour to wash our dishes at the gas station down the road. While there we meet a group of folks from Maryland who were just coming back from seeing car races in North Carolina, if I remember right. They're really friendly and ask us all about our trip and we chat for a while before we get going. Rolling start is still pretty early tho' which is good.

The 20 miles into Buchanan is super easy and mellow. It follows both a railroad tracks (altho' it can't decide which side of them it wants to be on) and a creek thru 1.5 lane country roads and lovely scenery. At some point on our way a cyclist coming in the other direction warns us about an unchained pit bull about a mile down the road. Fearing a confrontation, we get our can of bear spray ready, and I carry it in my back pocket. When Travis spots the dog, we all make a sprint for it, but it doesn't even make chase. That's a huge relief to everyone. It's pretty scary to be chased by a dog while on a bike, even if it isn't vicious, because of how easily it can knock you off.

We stop in Buchanan at a dollar store to grab lunch and supper and breakfast because there won't be much civilization for a while after this.  We cycle another 10 or so mellow miles after that and stop in the tiny parking lot for the Bethel Church of the Bretheren by a creek to sit and eat lunch and relax by the water. From there the hills start getting steeper, pastureland on each side and a ridge of wooded mountains beyond on the left. We pass the Roanoke cement factory (NO TRESPASSING, MINING AREA) and just go until it's time to stop for a breather again and try to talk to the cows. They look confused but Jenn says that's just what their faces look like.

Eventually we pass by a church Catawba and we look for people but no one's there but the door is unlocked so we figure they won't mind if we use their bathrooms as long as we don't make a mess of it. We're pretty tired so we decide to camp in a slightly angled field behind and to the left the church, right in front of some wild-lookin' woods. It's a good spot since it's not visible from the road so we pitch our tents. I accidentally drop Bike Rothar in the parking lot and crack all the eggs I've been carrying so we're forced to eat those now for dinner instead of for breakfast. We mix them with hotdogs, rice, and peas and it's actually pretty good. I also eat a few spoonfuls of marshmallow fluff for dessert which I've been hoarding for a while but now it's all gone :(

There's basically no cell phone service out here. There's not much to do so we all go to bed at like 8 p.m. I slide down in my tent due to the slight angle of the field but it's not so bad. Tomorrow we're gonna reach Jutta's house ~

pax.

--
today's numbers
distance: 41 miles
riding time: 4 hrs 23 min
avg speed: 9.4 mph
max speed: 37.7 mph
odo: 513 miles

TransAmerica Cycle 2013, day 8

When we get up in the morning there is a woman there who works for the Appalachian trail; she says we look like an advertisement for REI--we kinda do, me with my quarter dome, Jenn and Dan with their limelight, Anna and Ben with their half dome plus, lots of REI logos. She and the others exchange pleasantries while I try to wake up and get ready. Due to the wind and the bump under me I didn't sleep so well. When we finally go to put our tents away there are little slugs all over the bottom.

The blue ridge parkway has a lot of long, difficult climbs, even tho' the worst of it is behind us. Being able to see out over the mountains like this makes it all worth it, tho'. Wooded hills as far as the eye can see, all shades of blue and green under an aquamarine sky. It's sunny but there's plenty of shade and the downhills are actually kind of chilly. There are little pink flowers all over the sides of the road that are the perfect shape, the epitome of the word "flower," like something a kid in kindergarten would draw.

There are lots of cyclists out today on their racing bikes. Most of them talk to us, and have done touring themselves. When we reach the junction with state road 56 we take a turn and it's a long, steep, windy downhill to Vesuvius town. My brakes aren't too good by now and that means I have to take the curves a little faster than is comfortable lest the front wheel wobble uncontrollably under the brake. Tho' the others were WAY ahead of me I pass or catch up to them by the bottom. I got that descent on film so hopefully it turns out.

Supposedly according to the map it's all downhill to Lexington so we take only a short soda break at Gertie's country store (I have a proper Coke in a glass bottle with real sugar) and then get going again. Truth is it's only all downhill to Riverside, and even then due to a headwind it's not a particularly relaxing downhill. It's beautiful tho', mostly along a river with clear, cool waters, and it's a green, quiet road.

In Riverside at the bottom of the hill we find a small gas station and have a quick break there too, eating candy or ice cream or just sitting for a little while. We still think it's downhill to Lexington so we get going again but it's actually mostly uphill. Since we skipped breakfast and barely ate at the snack breaks we all start getting really crabby and tired. Food makes a big difference on trips like this. You have NO idea.

We take a wrong turn at some point, following the river instead of crossing it. We pass some cool houses built on stilts due to periodic flooding (there are signs that say, ROAD MAY FLOOD). When we find out it was a wrong turn it's really disappointing because it was a big hill we climbed and we didn't need to. When we finally roll into Lexington we pass the Virginia Military Institute which has a lot of cool buildings and reminds me of Dad, and we have to take a detour around a giant pit in the middle of the road to get to a grocery store to eat (Jenn and Dan go get Dominos). We're all completely knackered so we take a really long, hazy lunch in the small amount of shade afforded by for-sale patio furniture. There's a really friendly cashier from Jersey who talks to me as I go in and out getting things. She says she'll pray for us, which is nice, and I give her our facebook group and the address to this blog.

The road after Lexington rolls real easy and is full of cows and sunshine. We still find some things to argue about tho'. It's one of those days I guess. When we reach Natural Bridge there's a gas station where we take another potty/water/snack break and the sun is getting really low in the sky so we ask the guy if there's a place to camp anywhere around since after all we have gone 60 miles today already. He says there's a field down the road a ways that nobody owns so we could prolly camp there. We head to it and there's an old, creepy abandoned house attached. Jenn vetoes camping inside it but we all get flashlights and go in to explore, looking for ghosts. The floor is full of broken glass and there are half-packed suitcases in some of the rooms like someone moved out in a real hurry. There are even filled-out checks scattered across the floor, half of them filled out to the signer, from 1994. We ponder the mystery for a while then go out to pitch our tents in the last sliver of light left before the sun is completely gone. For some reason everyone pitches their tents really close together but mine is far away and lonely. Closer to the haunted house. Jenn thinks that she'll be scared of that house whenever she gets up to pee at night.

We have to cook supper in the dark but we have the front lights off our bike and we also build a small wood fire under our little grate dad gave us. Dinner is great... black beans, sausage, rice, mustard greens. The others drink some Pabst Blue Ribbon and I have a cream soda. Fireflies flit around us and all the stars come out--all of them. The little fire is just enough to warm our bare legs as we stand and talk. We'll get up earlier tomorrow so we can stop for the night with enough light left to have a proper camp.

pax.

--

today's numbers
distance: 60 mi
riding time: 6 hrs 1 min
average speed: 9.9 mph
max speed: 40 mph
odo: 471.7 miles

TransAmerica Cycle 2013, day 7

You see, my sister had a friend in middle school whose parents were friends with our parents, and they now live in Crozet, a little town between Charlottesville and Afton. Tho' they were not home as we passed them by, they graciously invited us to stay in their house nevertheless. It is really nice to be indoors after getting up in a mud pit last night. In the morning we make eggs with spinach and red bell peppers, and dry our tents in the sun a little as we get ready. We do our best to put the place exactly as it was before we arrived and leave a thank you note as we go out the door.

Due to our exhausting night last night we sleep in and we get a late start, rolling at about 11:30. The clouds look as if they were spread across the sky with a butter knife. In Crozet there's a little peach orchard farmer's market and we have second breakfast there, the others buying apple cider doughnuts while I buy an apple but eat marshmallow fluff and dark chocolate peanut butter. We don't have enough food for lunch and wont be in civilization for a while after this so Jenn, Dan, and I take a detour to get food for our next three meals while the others go on and get a head start up the big hill we have to climb today. I don't like splitting up but I go along. The grocery store turns out to just be a gas station market but we get what we can (pork & beans and corned beef hash) and stop at another small farmer's market for eggs and mixed greens.

From Crozet to Afton it's all uphill and I flag pretty hard, going about 3 mph and stopping periodically to rest my butt and thighs. The road is pretty and mostly empty until Afton, but it's all uphill and I'm in a bad mood. We stop for a quick snack before hitting the blue ridge parkway, and that gets my spirits up. The blue ridge parkway is all uphill for a long while too, tho'. We meet the others at a sobriety checkpoint (we don't have to go thru it, haha) and continue upward. I'm the slowest one for this type of cycling. I lag behind basically all day because we climb well over 3,000 feet and on a fully loaded bike, it's really slow going.

When we've gone 35 miles the sun is setting and it's getting really cold and we're at the junction that would take us to Reed's gap, so Dan and Travis try to scout out the crossroad. Dan comes back after a while huffing and puffing, saying the hill he just went down and up makes everything we've done so far look like a joke. We hesitate what to do because we don't have enough daylight to finish the parkway today, but thankfully another cyclist comes up behind us (coming back to his car from a day's ride) and since he knows the area he tells us what's what. Turns out we're right next to the Appalachian Trail so people camp in these fields all the time and it's okay. So we just walk a ways on the actual Trail and veer off into a field and pitch our tents in the grass.

It's getting really cold because it's dark and we're over 3000 ft up, and Jenn has a real rough time of it, huddling in her tent as the rest of us cook. I let her borrow a fleece vest of mine that I'd brought for Colorado weather and she warms up enough to come out and eat her corned beef-pork & beans-hash. When we've eaten we retire to our tents to sleep. I pitched mine right over a bump but if I sleep curled on one side or another I can curl around it but I still toss and turn a lot. It's windy all night and the rattling of my tent wakes me up many times but at least it doesn't rain on us.

Tomorrow there's not as big of a climb so it should be easier.

Pax.

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today's numbers
distance covered (Jenn, Dan, and I): 36 miles
riding time: 4 hrs 56 min
average speed (for me at least): 7.2 mph
maximum speed: 35.8 mph
total so far: 411.5 miles

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today's featured cyclist: my cousin!

Daphne riding Christopher Robin