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.
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!
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:
2 comments:
you should update your distance thingy....
(just a thought about the guy who you talked to about when he did the ride in 76 or something.)
Well good thing that you have the internet so you can keep this log of pictures and thoughts. Not have to worry about them getting lost in a notebook.
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