Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, it
did. Today, we are in Rosedale,
Virginia, at a little community church called Elk something. They have been putting up bikers for over 30
years. We have a shelter with picnic
tables, a kitchen inside, refrig, stove, and a place to put our air mattresses
and Jack’s pad. Again, no tents. These little “gold mines” have been an
unexpected bonus. Last night’s place
even had an ice machine.
Little bit of rain early this morning. Our plans were to leave about 6:15. Jack left soon thereafter, but Jerry and I
waited until about 6:50 to make sure the rain was officially over. None of us saw rain the rest of the
day. Right out of the chute almost we
had a hill, but it was a “kitten” compared to the hill we ended with
yesterday. Roads were wet, climate was
humid. We went through the towns of
Hellier, Ashcamp, Elkhorn City, pop 1050, the last city we saw in KY. Then it was onto Breaks and Breaks Interstate
Park, Hays, pop. 186, Birchleaf, Bee, Davenport, Council, which had a beautiful
city park, Honaker, pop 907 and onto Rosedale, pop 667. Right before Honaker, there was a mountain
that was pretty “challenging” called Big A.
We think the A stood for Big A#% Mountain, pardon my French. And then there was a little surprise mountain
just before we made it into Rosedale. Honaker
is the Redbud Capital of the World and the Honaker Lady Tigers were 2013
Virginia State Softball Champions. Breaks
Interstate looked like a good place to return to maybe. Beautiful river and canyons and rock
formations. Bad thing today was that
there was no place to get a pancake and a cup of coffee. Today we went 62 miles. We are now in our 10th and final
state. It seems like the middle part of
the trip is somewhat of a blur. Seems
like we were in Montana and now we are in Virginia. Today was our 46th day on the
road.
Seems like the poverty is not as bad now. Just crossing into Virginia seemed like it
all changed. I called Virginia the
Mountaineer state yesterday, but I’m told that is West Virginia. What is Virginia called then?
Thrones. We were in
a restaurant the other day where you had to go up a step, a big step, to get
into the little boy’s room. And then you
had to go up another step to sit on the throne.
Of course, they had a disclaimer on the door saying “they weren’t
responsible for injuries”. Yesterday,
along the road, I saw an outhouse with the door open that had two thrones. How about that.
We have of course seen thousands of street signs. Have not really mentioned a lot of
those. Today’s highlights were Patty
Loveless highway (I had no idea who she was) and Frying Pan Lane.
Jack had an interesting conversation with a truck driver
who had a ticket in Pike County and had to take a class to get rid of
points. Conversation lead to cyclists,
who he thought did not belong on the road.
He had other political type opinions about various topics. Jack, knowing the guy would not hear anything
he said, just nodded and conceded.
Tomorrow, we had for Troutdale. Could be the hardest day we have had for a
while. Some major climbs. After tomorrow, we have some flatter terrain
before we get to Mt. Vesuvious, the granddaddy of them all.
No comments:
Post a Comment