Su casa es mi casa

Wednesday:
Gas station somewhere to Mineral:
Not too much to report. Camped on the lawn of the volunteer fire department in town, killed a lot of time just lying on the grass watching the sun set as I got there around 4pm. Had nothing to do in town other than go over to the pizza place and freak out the girl working there by eating an entire medium pizza in one sitting. It was admittedly tough, stomach hasn't stretched out that much yet, but pacing is everything!

Thursday:
Mineral to Whitehall
Not too much interesting to report really, ended up camping on the lawn of a community center there, apparently they've been hosting bikers for quite a long time. Cooked a dinner for the first time on this trip - mac and cheese hiker style (no milk or butter - just water...) Don't think I'm going to do too much cooking on this trip, thinking pretty seriously about sending my cookpot and stove home, it's just too easy and too much better to just buy food that doesn't need cooking :). And, generally greasy dinner from a gas station probably gives you more calories than cooked backpacker food, and that's really all that matters.

Friday:
Whitehall to Rusty's
Only did 30-something miles today, but it involved a big climb in the morning, and lots of relaxing visiting in the afternoon. I had been trying to figure out how to get to this cool little farm/hostel place run by a guy called Rusty by road, but hadn't been having any luck. It's an old AT hiker standby that I had missed in '03 - some hiker friends had parents living in Waynesboro, just beyond Rusty's, so we went there instead.

So, as I'm sweating my way up a long climb along the Blue Ridge Parkway, I ran across a guy giving some sodas to a couple of hikers, I guessed he was an AT person out doing "trail magic" and stopped to say hi. Pulled off the road, got a good look at the guy handing out the sodas, he got a good look at me, I said he looked familiar, then he recognized me (even remembered my name! good memory!) from a couple years back in Georgia. The guy was Soulive, he had been out hiking on the AT in '04 when I was working at Neels gap and we both went to a party at my boss' place, then he hiked the entire trail in '05, and I think we met again then at some point, but we couldn't quite nail that one down. Anyways, small world! So, after talking a little bit, Soulive invited me to come over to Rusty's for burgers that night! I hadn't been thinking about Rusty's at the time, but it was a cool little coincidence. So, got directions and rolled on a couple miles, including an amazing downhill stretch of smooth pavement with no traffic, to Rusty's dirty driveway! Finally got to stay at the Hard Time Hollow, and helped to cook up some burgers, killed a bunch of fat carpenter bees (they eat wood - including houses...) with a wiffle ball bat, and had a great time hanging out with some neat people! Good times.

Killing Carpenter Bees at Rusty's, with a wiffle ball bat - we ended up running out of bees after scoring 19+ points!

Saturday:
Rusty's to motel in Daleville
Longish day - 80 something miles, just for the sake of riding. Hot weather, but nothing really jumps out as an interesting event. Stayed at a motel for the night, was whipped, needed a hot shower, it was starting to rain (although it didn't rain much at all,) and it sounded like a good idea at the time. Was nice to catch up on the news, make some phone calls, all that good stuff.

Sunday:
Weird day! Got off to a somewhat late start around 10am from the motel in Daleville, ended up chatting with a couple AT thru hikers, one of whom rode the original Bikecentennial (old name for Transamerica) route in 1976. A few hours later, at a service station in Catawba, I bumped into another hiker who inadvertently reminded me that we were right by the Homeplace Restaurant! I hadn't considered it before, but the route goes right by Homeplace's driveway, so I had to stop by. Homeplace is a "family style" restaurant, which basically means that you pay a fixed amount, sit down, and eat until you're about to explode, digest some, eat more, then repeat. Excellent food, and good memories from the hike in '03! Unfortunately, it was hot as hell out, and I had just eaten a fair bit, drank a liter of gatorade, and was planning on riding on, so I wasn't going to do more than fill the water bottles. Went in and ended up talking with a waitress about filling up the bottles, was told where to fill them up and to "hang loose," then a couple minutes later she put a little cardboard box in my hand and told me to leave out the back door. Turned out it was a couple nice big pieces of fried chicken and biscuits! Trail magic! Rode on a couple miles to a shaded pull-off, ate the food, and rolled on west.

I hoped to camp in Claytor State Park, but on arriving I found out that they were entirely booked up and didn't allow camping outside of the sites. Rode around the park and talked with every ranger I could find about potential options, trying my best not to beg, but to end up with a place to crash for the night, either in the park or someone's lawn. Couldn't get permission to camp in the picnic areas, on the beaches, in the woods behind the ranger staion, anywhere. We tried calling all the places within a reasonable ride, but had no luck. I ended up chatting with a couple campers in the process, none were helpful. After a thwarted attempt at "stealth camping," (those rangers were jerks..) I rode back towards town and chatted with a couple groups of people celebrating Memorial Day in their yards, none knew of other campsite or offered up a few square feet of lawn for me to sleep for the night. I was getting kindof frustrated at this point, and really didn't want to fork out the cash to stay in the expensive local motels, fortunately though, as I was riding past the front of one of the motels, a couple guys waved and said hi from a motel room door. Stopped to talk with them and discovered they were a couple of hikers who were "yellow blazing" - hitchhiking instead of backpacking - up the AT towards Shenandoah. I ended up paying the motel guy $20 to split the room three ways with them, and had a place to crash. Both of them smoked a bunch in the already stuffy room, and one guy watched TV until he fell asleep with it left on sometime after 1am. Didn't get much sleep, but it worked out. Don't think I'll ever visit that area again for fun.

Monday:
Rode 95 miles today to arrive at the house of my friends Trace and 1/3 (One Third,) aka Brian and Christine (most Appalachian Trail backpackers have "trail names" that we use, kindof weird, but fun,) in Damascus VA. Long ride, but for the most part it was very pleasant and scenic. Crossed the 500 mile mark on my trip too, thought that was kindof neat. Early in the day, I met a couple other people heading west on the transamerica route, the first other transam bikers I've met, and it's been a week of riding! We chatted for a little bit, then they stopped for a break and I continued on. Like virtually every other cycle tourist I've met, they had heavy looking loads on their bikes, doesn't look like much fun in these hills! Rather than the intense sun and upper 80s, even low 90s, heat we've been having lately, it stayed overcast and didn't get too hot all day, so I kept riding on over rolling hills and a few steepish, but short, climbs to get to the Troutdale area, where I was tentatively thinking of stopping. It was still early afternoon, weather was looking ok, and the Damascus vortex was sucking me in once again, so I rolled on through the Mt Rogers national forest, crossed the AT a couple times, thinking all along that the road looked familiar. A few miles later, I realized that in 2003, Blaze, Face, and I had hitchhiked the same route to get back to Damascus for Traildays. Forked off the official route just past Konnarock to ride the Virginia Creeper trail down into Damascus. The trail is packed gravel and cinder, with quite a few bridges (some are converted rail tressles,) so it wasn't exactly ideal riding on my road bike with it's skinny tires, but it managed well. Got into Damascus and Trace and 1/3's house a little after 6 - not a bad ride!

At the top of the Creeper Trail - two adventures overlap!

Within a half hour or so of my (unannounced, unplanned, whatever) arrival at Trace and 1/3's place, another friend of ours, Rider, showed up, also unannounced! Rider is thru-hiking the AT again after his first hike in '04, when I met him while I was working at Neels Gap the first time - he got one of my alcohol stoves and carried it all the way to Maine :). Spent the rest of the evening hanging out, throwing a frisbee around in the massive yard here, and eating ice cream. Good times!

Tuesday:
Slept like a rock last night, sooo nice! Went for a walk around town with Rider to get breakfast, but unfortunately Baja, our primary objective, was closed so we ended up getting an excellent breakfast at another place a little bit out of town. Took care of a few random errands in town, then went back to the house to meet up with Trace to go out for a swim in an ice cold creek a mile or two south of here, in Tennessee. Trace stayed out of the water, but Rider and I got good and cooled off! Rider and Trace decided to hike back, I drove the car back to the house to catch up on computer stuff and rinse the salt out of my riding clothes.



Should be getting done with Virginia and started with Kentucky in just a couple more days, haven't really looked at the maps much beyond Damascus though, so I plan to do some number crunching, map looking, and general planning as the ride progresses. In 5 or 6 days, I'll be rolling into Berea, KY, where I went to high school, and spending a few days there visiting with family, friends, and probably a bunch of bikers that now have my mom's address and open invitations :).

Pictures from the last few days:

Some hay bales, don't remember where honestly.

Monticello, home of Jefferson - went on a tour of the house, seems like Jefferson was an interesting, and maybe a little bit eccentric, guy!

Another farm shot

Mmmm pressure fried chicken!

First 100 miles down!

So, I got the bike from the UPS place and put it together out in the parking lot of the UPS center. The box was in pretty good shape, as was the bike inside except for the little bracket that my speedometer hooks into. Got changed into riding gear and mailed home one extra pair of clothes, then took off! So far, the ride between Newport News and the other side of the interstate has been far and away the sketchiest part of the journey, and I hope it stays that way. Went over to a bike shop and fortunately was able to buy just a replacement bracket instead of my third speedometer for this trip :). I asked about how to get up to Yorktown and was surprised to find that the local shop actually had a map printed up that detailed a nice route through residential areas all the way up to where I was looking to go!

It's apparently one of their weekly rides, good deal for me! Rather than following a very busy road, I ended up rolling through a mix of forests and small neighborhoods. The route was easy to follow, the weather was excellent, and there was some nifty Civil War scenery around. Made it to the Victory Monument in Yorktown, which is where the route officially begins, then went on over to the beach to get it started right. Then right from there over to the Yorktown Pub.

A burger and some fries later, I was on the road west! Rode through Historic Williamsburg, got minorly lost (they don't label the roads there - excellent toursit trap idea!,) and found my way back to the road. Pedalled on to a small convenience store that allows riders to camp for the night, bought some food, and camped for the night.

My knee ended up hurting towards the end of Monday, enough that I was planning on taking a short day today. It was still fairly painful this morning as well, but after warming up for a few miles, I found myself at the end of the shorter ride at something like 11am and was feeling much better, so I decided to head on another 30 or so miles to camp just past Mechanicsville, where I am now at a library. It seems that I'm back in the game of hammering out updates as quickly as possible while the library staff tries to enforce some crazy short time limit, so that's about all for now! Will do some editing and such later, maybe.

Thanks Jersey!

Yesterday, my friend Jersey gave me a ride from Traildays out to Newport News, VA. I spent the night in a motel, and will be heading over to UPS in a couple minutes to pick up the bike, put it together, then start the ride west! Will update more thoroughly later!

On the road again

Spent the last five days or so generally being lazy around my dad's place. It's been good to catch my breath after an insane semester and visit with my dad and stepmom for a bit. Got a lot of reading time in, took care of some minor trip related stuff, caught up on sleep, and even a little bit of Husqvarna love. Will be catching a ride up to Damascus, VA tomorrow for traildays, then getting out to the coast of VA sometime around Monday or Tuesday with any luck.

There are still a few loose ends to take care of before starting the ride. One thing that's been occupying my thoughts a bit, although in the end it shouldn't be that big of a deal, is how to get between the UPS shipping place over to where I want to actually start the trip. Obviously, at that point I'll have the bike, but the two locations are something on the order of 10 miles of what sounds like (sub)urban territory that I'm completely unfamiliar with. From looking at online maps, the obvious routes involve some pretty big roads, and there's no way I've found to figure out how sane it is to ride them (aka if there's a shoulder.) I'm sure a solution will be apparent when I get there, but nevertheless, it's the main thing that I've been thinking about. Also, I still haven't figured out exactly how to get from either Damascus, VA -where Traildays is- or Hampton, TN -where Hardcore is- over to the coast -where the bicycle will be. That little problem will work itself out too, I think.

There are a couple smallish gear items that I'll likely pick up before starting as well. There's some incidental stuff that I always get together at the beginning of a trip; a rinsed soda bottle half full of denatured alcohol for fuel, a small assortment of rubberbands and zipties (super handy,) some toilet paper, and a couple plastic bags. Basically, the stuff that I either can't fly with or that I end up using up and not thinking to get before it's time to get started. In addition, I'm going to keep my eye out for some pepper spray type stuff for stray dogs that like to chase bikes, have heard they're a bit of an issue in Virginia and, from experience, it's a problem in Kentucky. There are a few products made especially for spraying dogs, mostly intended for postal type people, but they're useful for bikers as well. Suppose I could swing by a grocery store and just get a shaker of crushed pepper - good for a laugh, a little safety, and to kick the mac & cheese up a notch! Might also get a second pair of bike shorts, still debating this one and am thinking I might just try one and see how it goes. The backpacker in me thinks having two isn't really necessary, although it does seem like most bike touring types do carry more than one pair. Most bike touring types carry a lot more than ~15-20 pounds of gear though ;)

So, I'll be getting reunited with the bike in something like 5 days now, then the real bike trip will begin! In the meantime, here are a couple random pictures from this corner of the world. First one is my late grandfather's shop, where I spent many hours learning the finer points of taking stuff apart and occasionally putting it back together. Lots of wood chips, scraped knuckles, dirty grease, narrowly averted
explosions, and a few not so much. Now my dad's using it for clock repair type stuff mostly, it's still a fun place to mess around. Second picture is a quick shot up Duke's Creek - where I used to spend a bunch of time swimming and rearranging rocks as a kid.

Getting Rolling!

After a late night out Friday, I eventually managed to pry myself out of bed Saturday morning and get out of Boulder! Packed up everything into my panniers, grabbed a bagel, and headed over to the RTD bus stop to catch a ride to the airport. Didn't take much time to get the panniers checked (inside those giant plastic bags the airline gives out to keep the hardware and straps from snagging,) but then I got to stand in the security line for longer than I've ever done at DIA, even counting when I flew right after the airport re-opened after the storms last winter. Don't know why things were going so slow, but they were... Barely had time to grab some fast food on the way to the gate, but it turned out that the plane was taking off a little late anyways, so it wasn't as close as I had thought. Somehow managed to read a few chapters in my book, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, despite the best efforts of a few toddlers seated nearby. Eventually, about the time that the pilot usually announces to prepare for landing, there was an announcement that we'd be diverting to Knoxville, TN as there was a thunderstorm in Atlanta and we didn't have enough fuel to circle and wait it out. Oh well, two takeoffs for the price of one! After a very nicely done landing in Knoxville, we got refuelled (those guys have a really cool fuel truck, but I'll leave that part out :) ) and went for a short ride down to Atlanta. After an hour or so on MARTA, I met up with dad and we drove up to his house by 11:30 or so, just a couple hours later than originally planned.

The plan at this point is to hang around here for a few days, then I'll be getting a ride up to Traildays with my Friends Josh and Leigh from the Hiker Hostel in Dahlonega on Thursday. I'm pretty set on going to the Hardcore trail maintenance gig that Bob Peoples orchestrates on the Sunday and Monday after Traildays, will do that unless I can't work out how to get from there to the Yorktown area.

In the meantime, my bike will be heading out to Virginia at the beginning of next week. Boxed it up Friday along with much of the cycling-specific gear, Steve is going to mail it for me in a couple days - Thanks, Steve! I'm having it sent to a UPS distribution center, where I'll reassemble it in the parking lot, then head west!

Also did some messing around with the journal layout - it's not going to work as well in Internet Explorer 6, but I'm not a big fan of IE anyways, so it's going to stay that way. Hopefully some people will be fooled into thinking this thing is interesting and reading along, maybe even leaving comments! (there's a little link at the end of each entry, use it please!) Later.

Getting closer!

Suppose it'll be about two weeks until I start riding. Leaving Boulder in four days.

Life's been hectic lately - lots of school stuff going on, a fair bit going on at work, and much uncertainty about the fate of our neat little house in Boulder at the end of the summer. Because of that, I spent a good bit of last weekend getting all my stuff packed up and moving it into my aunt and uncle's basement in Longmont, about 20 miles up the road from here. The original plan was to just pack it into the basement here and get it out when I get back to town in August. Hopefully, things will work out so that we can keep this house next fall - it's a fun place and it would be nice to have somewhere to come back to rather than just jumping into looking for a room and moving again.

At this point, I'm living essentially out of the same gear I'm taking on the ride, plus a pair of jeans, a second T-Shirt, and some school stuff to finish up finals with. It feels good to get closer to a minimalist lifestyle, but I can't wait to get out on the road and away from school, work, and city life.

This semester has been really draining - I've completed 20 credit hours (12 is considered "full-time student",) with 15 of those coming from the engineering or applied math departments and the rest from Spanish. In addition, I've been working something on the order of 20 hours a week for the school's IT department fixing computers. Most days have started with an alarm at 7am and run nonstop to a finish after midnight.

It's been interesting to observe people's reactions to the idea of this trip over the last couple weeks - it seems like everyone has a different idea of what will be challenging and what will make it rewarding. Probably the most common response has been along the lines of "wow, that's a long way!", then not getting much farther than that in conversation. Many have expressed concerned over a grab bag of things; physical difficulty, boredom, mechanical issues, money, logistics, accidents, or some vague idea of "bad people." Others have a more positive first reaction and mentioned how interesting it will be to see more of the US, how rewarding it would be to finish, exercise benefits, bragging rights, self discovery, and all kinds of random things. Finally, there have already been a few of the "I wish I would have done that" sort of responses.

Really though, it's more about taking a break, and sort of "going home."

Preperation Updates

This is likely to be a brief post - just wanted to throw a quick update out there before heading out to another of the long string of graduation/nice weather/pre-moving sort of cookouts and parties that started a few days ago. Have most everything together, or at least figured out, for the big ride that'll be starting in about 2 1/2 weeks now!

Went out for a fun training ride/visit with Matt and Tina, a couple good friends from Boulder who are also into the triathlon scene. We met up Saturday morning with a decent size group of tri-team people and went for a 30-40 mile ride out north of town and up to Jefferson. Beautiful weather, traffic wasn't too bad, and the downhill on the way home was a blast! Picked up some good bits of info on touring too!

Unfortunately, I managed to loose my brand new speedometer thingy on the way to the rendezvous point. Apparently, I hadn't clipped it all the way into the mount Friday evening when I was trying to figure out some functions on it. Tried re-riding the route before and after the longer part of the ride, but couldn't find it. Bummer.

Spent some of Sunday evening installing the new headset - wasn't too bad to just improvise the specialty tools that are recommended for the job. Did have a little issue with the bit that's supposed to press onto the fork - for some reason my fork has a slightly larger steertube than any other bike on the planet, so one part didn't fit. Turns out it's not really necessary, so I managed to get everything put together and working Monday afternoon after taking the fork and extra part over to a bike shop to see if they could get them to go together - the mechanic had never seen that situation before...

Received what will hopefully be my last package of bike stuff this evening - got a jersey, some bottle cages, and a few spare tubes from nashbar. Mounted the bottle cages, and packed up the bike with all the gear I'm planning on taking. According to our funky bathroom scale, the entire setup (bike, gear, bags, water, etc) is a little bit over 50 pounds - not bad! I roll home from the grocery store with more stuff than that sometimes, my bike handles the load nicely.

Talked a bit with my housemate Steve about shipping stuff the other day - he works for a retail shipping place - and figured out what the most economical way to ship the bike is. Might actually box it myself, which I know I've sworn I'd never do again.

The rest of this week is going to involve a lot of packing, I'm essentially moving everything I own (minus bike touring stuff!) into my uncle's basement before leaving. Also have finals for 4 classes coming up, but I'm not too worried about them really. Yay for indifference!