Tag Archives: Virginia

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The Eastern Shore

June 1, 2012 – 9:16 pm

A tradition among many cross-country cyclists involves dipping your back tire in the ocean you are leaving and dipping your front tire in the ocean you were heading for, as a way to fully embody “coast-to-coast.”

Not only do Ben and I find this as ridiculous as we do trail names, but lugging your bike across the sand (which is terribly exhausting) and getting copious amounts of sand in our chains (also terribly exhausting…to clean), is incredibly undesirable. So when people started asking us, “where are you going to see the coast?” my first reaction was, “we’re not.” End of story.

However, the story didn’t end there. Ben’s desire to see Williamsburg and Jamestown brought us unusually close to the coast, so close in fact, that it was pretty much unavoidable. And before you could say the words, “fresh seafood,” my irrational qualms with the coast had vanished.

After our hellish day crossing the Chesapeake, we landed at Kiptopeke State Park, right on the southern tip of the peninsula, where Ben was so generously offered coffee by a Canadian angel. After some showers, dinner, and talk about doing laundry, we curled up in our tent as the rains began to fall.

We woke up next morning to grassy ponds and clear skies. But wait, we didn’t do our laundry! We quickly gathered our things and started our load, hoping to get on the road as soon as the buzzer went off. You’d think we would have learned this lesson some time ago… Morning quickly became noon and we still hadn’t packed up the tent. Instead, we decided to take the day off, a choice I think we both had already made the night before. So we packed our lunch and set off to explore the place my mind was fixed to believe was an island.

The park had many signs on the trails (apparently birding is popular out here) some of which really left you hanging. Perhaps the state of Virginia feels bird watchers need work on their critical thinking….

Our first ocean photoshoot. We forgot to wear our matching white shirts and jeans. We were barefoot, though!

Virginia also seems to take pride in their lawns – everywhere we went, we could either hear and/or see a lawnmower. It’s kind of odd watching people ride around on their giant lawnmowers when you’re in what you thought was a state park.

After our day of rest, we headed up the shore toward Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland. For lunch, we stopped at Exmore Diner, apparently the best food in the area. I was a little intimidated about ordering seafood at a diner, so went with my usual turkey club, only to find out bites later, that the diner was known for the seafood. Darn!

After lunch, we scurried our way up to Chincoteague Island, where we were intending to cross into Maryland. While munching on an afternoon snack of soft-shelled crab and oyster sandwiches just before crossing into Maryland, we discovered, after a heated discussion with the cooks, that the road we had been planning to ride up was actually a sandy beach. As mentioned before, this was highly undesirable.

We quickly located a nearby RV park, but were a little bummed we weren’t going to stay at in the park we had heard so many good things about. We were delighted to find that the park had closed between the time I called asking if there was tent camping and our arrival not thirty minutes later, and chose the furthest, most out of sight spot to unload our stuff.

With our bikes light and airy, we set off for Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge to check out the sights.

Of course my hands were filled with treasures before we had gone too far. Ben refused to hold my shoes for me.

Next morning, we fled the scene of the crime before the office opened. Stealth camping in campgrounds has become one of my favorite things to do….

We rode into the cutsy little beach town to find some breakfast and then were off to begin our inland detour.

I pulled this bad boy out of my tire. Yikes!

As we pulled into downtown Berlin, Maryland for lunch, Ben realized his wallet was missing. The last time he remembered seeing it was 50 miles south, on Chincoteague Island. We were both hoping Ben had acquired enough wallet-returning Karma for this to turn out.
………………………..
After checking in with the few stores we were at this morning without much luck, we got our lunch and drank away our sorrows with a strawberry milkshake. Ben went outside to cancel his credit cards while I paid the bill. When I met him outside, he was on the phone with the manager from the place we had breakfast, and THEY FOUND IT! Ben called them back and set up a mail drop and they promised to send it the coming monday, even offering to get a money order for the cash that was in his wallet. We should have gotten another milkshake.

Feeling much better than before, we pedaled on to Ocean CIty and up the coastal highway to Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware. It was kind of odd being at a beach town on the east coast, especially since it was oddly reminiscent of the west….

Right before entering the park, we stopped at a liquor store to buy some booze for the night. We were both immediately drawn to the case of Dogfish Head brews, not only because of their stylish labels, but because they are a brewery Ben and I both enjoy (fun fact – their 60 minute IPA was the first IPA I could drink without cringing). Then it dawned on us…………..Dogfish Head Brewery is in Delaware. We are in Delaware.

We immediately checked our phones to find their locations, and of course, we passed right by their tap room earlier today without even knowing it. Holy Crap.

In my frustration, I bought their 90 minute IPA, with 9% ABV. There was no way we were going to ride 10 miles round trip to drink some beer we’ve already had…right?

WRONG! Before we even stuffed the slightly sweating beers into our bags, we had decided we were going. There was no way we could be in Delaware and NOT go to Dogfish. Ashley would kill us.

We raced our way to the park, trying to use our limited remaining daylight hours wisely. As we neared the park office, a tall young guy with ray ban knock-offs stuck his head out of the window with a giant grin, saying, “Are you touring!?!?!?!??!?! I’ve always wanted to tour, don’t worry about paying. Where are you from? Yeah, the campgrounds full, but you can just stealth camp off some trail. How long have you been on the road? Oh, you want to go to Dogfish? Yeah, that area’s closed for the nesting birds, but you can walk through there anyways, I take walks back there all the time. Have a safe trip!”

So, we proceeded to do everything he told us to do. We pitched our tent right off a trail, grabbed what we needed (good thing Ben didn’t lose his passport!), and hiked off into the sunset, beers in hand.

Turns out, the nesting birds were nesting in a bunch of sand dunes, which soon turned into marshland, and after a few miles, quiet neighborhoods. It was quite the hike.

By the time we got to Dogfish, my legs were sore and I was sufficiently tipsy – 5 miles of intermediate hiking wasn’t enough to work off my 9% buzz. It was 10 o’clock.

It was the day before mother’s day, and the place was packed with families. We were seated right next to the stage, right beneath the speakers. Ben stuffed napkin wads in his ears and I had to order my beers and food with sign language. I went for the sampler, Raison D’Etre, Apirhop, 120 minute, Black and Blue, and their Black and Red. All were delicious except for the Black and Red, a mint infused stout, which was a little intense as you might be able to imagine.

We ordered the dogfish pile nachos, antelope sliders, and a pizza I can’t really remember. As we mowed down on food and drink we watched as one seemingly drunk daughter stood up and started dancing by herself. She eventually rallied someone else’s mother, but finished off solo as the slimy and overweight lead guitarist playfully jammed the guitar’s neck into her breasts. I was so appalled I forgot to check the mother’s expression. I can’t imagine it being too different from my own. Happy Mother’s Day!

We left Dogfish a little more intoxicated than when we had arrived, setting off into the darkness with much more vigor than usual. It was midnight.

Our energies softened as our walk turned to a hike, and 5 miles later, we collapsed into our undiscovered tent, wishing we had thought to blow up our air mattresses when we were sober. It was 2 in the morning.

Four hours later, I find myself unable to fall back asleep, as Ben snores gently by my side. This is the exact opposite of what usually happens. Hung over and nervous of getting caught stealthing it at a state park, I roused Ben and we packed our stuff, again, a total role reversal. Unfortunately, the ferry we were going to take into New Jersey wasn’t hungover and paranoid like I was and was leaving at the very same time it had always intended: 9am. With 3 hours to kill, we brushed our teeth, climbed up the WW2 watch towers (the spiral staircase did some work on my headache), and tried to locate some food. This was one of those days where I was aching for a cup of coffee.

We arrived to Cape May, New Jersey a little before lunch, just in time for second breakfast. After pancakes and lots of orange juice and water, we headed out to Wharton State Park, the very same woods Tom Brown wandered around in as a kid.

Before we even left the town of Cape May, the people of New Jersey had made it to the top of my worst drivers list. They are all super fast and aggressive, and we were still 150 miles from NYC.

New Jersey has lots of pizza parlors. Cheap and easy – New Jersey equivalent to burritos?

After getting lost a couple times due to lack of street signs, we spent the night at a completely deserted (and free) campground right across the blood red river from an RV park. After drinking some of the water from a super old water pump, we realized the river was red from extreme iron levels. It reminded me of Camp Steven’s water back in the day…

Our second and last day in New Jersey, we rode back out to the coast and up the Jersey Shore. The further north we got, the more fun the sightseeing became.
The houses in particular were fantastic to look at – each mansion was done in a completely different style than the next, each one outdoing the other in so many wonderfully horrific ways. In a nutshell, these houses were hideous, so hideous in fact, that you couldn’t help but laugh.

Ben being a Jersey boy.

As we neared the northern tip of the Jersey Shore, we realized we had made yet another state park mistake. The park we were hoping to stay at only took groups of boy/girl scouts. Being neither, we had to figure out an alternative. So we called up Ben’s friend Dan, who we were planning on staying with in the city the next couple of nights, asking if it would be okay to pop in early. A half an hour before the last ferry into the city, Dan gave us the okay, and we rolled our bikes onto the boat, made sure we were sitting on the right side, and watched the sun set as we crossed the bay toward NYC.

Tags Chesapeake Bay, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia | Permalink | Comments (2)

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On the march through Virginia

May 26, 2012 – 2:47 am

Apologies first! I realize we’re weeks behind at this point, and just as a PSA, everyone should know that the little map with pins most reliably represents our current location–plus! you can click the pins for more info/pictures about any given day. Hopefully that’s a little consolation for the shabby state of our narrative currently.

So Delaney left us at the conclusion of a very satisfying visit from my mother in Charlottesville. Because of flight timing, we exited the city late, riding out in the afternoon amid bright sun and ominous clouds. One of the personal defects this trip has surfaced is a failure to attend to weather reports as closely as I ought. It’s fairly inexcusable, because technology has eliminated even the insufferable watching of the weather channel as a necessity. 100 years ago, wars would have been fought over the forecasting technology I carry in my pocket, and still Delaney and I ride blithely on into walls of water on a regular basis. I blame this on being from California mostly–that and an oblivious nature generally. But it’s undeniable that everyone in Texas could tell us–and did!–the predicted direction and velocity of the next day’s wind. California: Who needs weather reports when you have a sweatshirt?

So anyway, at this point you’ve gathered we got rained on. Our go-to move when this happens is to stand by the side of the road in our lemon yellow rainjackets and sulk. This generally fails to affect the weather in any way. The next move is to search frantically for an emergency campsite, hurriedly pitch the tent in the rain, throw everything inside, strip off our clothes, and lay there damp and tacky, sticking to anything made of nylon, which is everything, and sweat like fever victims. Going through the trouble of this procedure reliably changes the weather–if not the odor of the tent–for the better and I imagine we’ll return to it often.

After the weather related setback, we got back on our generally NE course toward Fredricksburg and a confluence of Civil War battlefields: Chancellorsville, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Fredericksburg itself. You may have a Ken Burnsian narrator that intones those names on behalf of your inner monologue; for me, they always resurfaced images from the giant tome that was released to accompany that miniseries. (I may have been too young for the late airtime of the actual production?) In middle school, I used to lay on the Barnecut’s dark-green family room carpet and page through the tintypes of freshly uniformed soldiers and those post-amputation, reproductions of heroic wall-sized oil paintings, letters home resolved on imminent but honorable death, and then descriptions of the battles themselves–horrible and captivating to a boy who spent many Boy Scout trips hiding in the woods with a rifle-like stick. I was probably a bit more excited to ride through these places than Delaney, but she was game, and not coincidentally the terrain mostly flat.
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It seems like the facilities at these battlefields mostly cater to people who geek out over maps of troop movements with the blue and red arrows and want to stand exactly where such and such a regiment held their line, etc. That’s rather tedious and not at all evocative. The really mind-blowing thing for me was being able to put casualty numbers in a spatial context. Walking these sites brings home just how horrifying one of these battles must have been. Tens of thousands of men blasting away at each other with no cover in some meagre cornfield, maybe able to hide behind a bullet-riddled barn if they were lucky. A lot of these places are totally free of development, the structures, amazingly, still standing, and the roads continue to ferry people in the directions they did 140 years ago. So, I recommend a visit if you need a good place to muse on the awful ways people have devised to wound and maim each other.

Cold Harbor and Malvern Hill are the best preserved–extensive swells of earthworks and stubborn chimneys the only clutter amid the undulating grass fields and groves of trees. Disconcertingly peaceful places until you start reading the signage. Fredericksburg was particularly powerful to visit because you can walk the sunken road behind the stone wall immortalized in a photograph I’m sure many would recognize, where the ditch behind the wall is littered with rifles and corpses–that image was burned into my twelve-year-old memory.

The sunken road at Fredericksburg.

Civil War cemetery outside of Richmond, near Malvern Hill.

On our way out of Fredericksburg, the only camping inside of 30 miles was a KOA south of town. If you’ve never been to a KOA, imagine if a developer of mini-golf courses–let’s call him Colonel Mustard–got into the campground business. Lot’s of log cabins, astroturf, and yellow. People like to park their RVs at KOAs. After weighing our options, we ducked out into the woods in the battlefield itself and pitched our tent directly next to an old Confederate entrenchment. It was a little eerie, not only because helpful signage informed us that our spot was very close to a particularly bloody little encounter, but also because, unlike most of our covert camping spots, being discovered at this one may have carried the risk of a four-figure fine for desecrating a historical site. (If you think this is bad form on our part, just note that it’s pretty impossible to camp in the woods anywhere in Eastern Virginia without tripping over some kind of fortification.) Fortunately for us, the night passed without incident, ghostly or otherwise.

We were up early the next morning with an ambitious plan to ride all the way south the Williamsburg, home of Colonial Williamsburg, which I guess can most accurately be described as a historical Disneyland, but in the pejorative commercialized sense–they want to sell you the felt Johnny Tremaine hat. I was initially pretty excited to visit because the cabinet maker who works there in the uber-traditional manner has a blog I read on occasion and I think he was mid-construction on a pianoforte last time I checked. But there was somewhere near 100 miles to ride before I could drag Laney along to ogle that sweet joinery.

I think I’ve written before about how Google Maps and I have trust issues. There was an ACA route to Williamsburg, but it looked pretty long, with lots of zig-zagging and highway avoidance, and then there was the Google suggestion: deliciously straight and tempting, but suspiciously reliant on what could be major highways. The eternal conundrum of the modern touring cyclist. It didn’t help that on the way to breakfast Google sent us in search of a nowhere road that led to us bushwhacking around under a train trestle.

Delaney, suffering under the direction of a capricious Google Maps.

With muddy feet, I insisted on being directed by the ACA route planned by rational humans, which I was sure wouldn’t add THAT much milage. Laney was reluctant. The ACA route added 40 miles in the end, and wasn’t too scenic either–mostly scrubby swampy forest. As trunk-like as our legs were at that point, we weren’t up for a 140 mile day with consistent headwind. We got bailed out by the lovely Willis United Methodist Church who’ve been hosting cyclists riding the ACA TransAmerica route for at least 10 years. They opened the doors for us and we had the full run of their community room, bathrooms, kitchen, which was particularly welcome since we weren’t going to make it to the Warm Showers host I had lined up and we were still filthy from our trench camping and rain abeyance routine. The availability of this type of hospitality is one of the strongest arguments against blazing your own trail across the county.

We headed out the next day much cleaner than before and rode straight to Jamestown. Online commenters had generally suggested Jamestown as a better visit than Williamsburg, and we took their word for it. It’s undeniably interesting as the first English settlement in America–so interesting I guess that you can choose from two full museums, one run by the NPS and the other by some themeparky operation. The actually settlement site is pretty odd, as it’s dominated by a GIANT monolith dedicated sometime in the 1930s to celebrate the arrival of the would be plunderers who mostly managed to starve themselves while digging for gold in the middle of a malarial swamp. There’s a reconstructed church from a similar era, ruins of a Civil War naval fort, statues, old wells, recreated wooden palisades, an incredible jumble really. The site’s been built on and used by so many different people that they’re actually just starting to do the archeology on the original settlement itself. Really the most striking thing about it is the god-awful swamp they set up camp in initially. I don’t know how similar the situation is today, but the whole northern side of the island is a black cesspool. We wouldn’t have camped there for a night, and we obviously have low standards. Keep Jamestown in mind next time you hear someone talking about the wisdom of our forebears.

The Jamestown historical jumble.

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Charlottesville

May 20, 2012 – 8:34 pm

Before I start, I’m going to apologize for the lack of pictures of our time in Charlottesville. To make up for it, I shall post some photos of the most adorable kittens, who are probably now cats, that Ben and I had the pleasure to raise before we left for our trip – say “meow” to Butters and Pino.

A couple weeks before our arrival, we had planned to meet up with Ben’s mother, Laurie, in Charlottesville, VA. Despite quite a few 20-30 mile days and the simple fact that we were riding in the mountains, we were still traveling faster than we had anticipated, and sure enough, arrived in Charlottesville one day before Laurie would arrive. As soon as we got some reception (there was hardly any throughout the BRP), we sent out a handful of requests on WarmShowers, asking for a bed that very night.

I would like to thank all of those people who understand the uncertainties of life (especially life on a bicycle) and are willing to host strangers at the very last minute.

Olin responded to us not long after we had sent out our requests, and after a few wrong turns, watching a fellow cyclist bomb down a hill and eat it at the bottom (he was alright, just a little shaken up), and trying to figure out what the mascot for UVA was (I voted for pirates, turns out they’re cavaliers), we were greeted by 4 very friendly dogs and their owners, Olin, David, and Dan.

After the house tour, some showers, and the usual chatting (Olin toured Trans America a couple years back and works at the only brewery in town), Ben and I were back on our now-very-light bikes to check out the pedestrian mall and grab a bite to eat.
We spent the evening eating more self serve frozen yogurt than either of us wanted (those bowls fill up so quick! especially when they have mochi, which is pretty much always) and drinking cappuccinos while watching many others do just the same.

Next morning, we stopped at Bodo’s Bagels on “the corner” (right across from UVA) for breakfast and to wait for Laurie to call. While the bagels were good, the people watching was even better.

As we’ve been slowly moving north, I’ve slowly been noticing a change in the style of clothing, but in Charlottesville, it was plain as day that I was not in California anymore.
Most girls were walking around in baggy shirts and running shorts (the very same style of running shorts I might add, despite the wide variety of color combinations) even though most of them looked like they never planned on exercising in them. Fair enough for a humid day at school. Every other girl was dressed up looking like they were going to prom, or at least to a 5 star restaurant. I guess if I had to dress up that nicely all the time, which seems like a lot of work, I too would want to hang out in my pjs all day.

The guys were much less likely to hang out in their gym shorts, but instead seemed to prefer the pastel colored shorts with scattered silhouettes of elephants, sailboats, whathaveyou, and maybe a pinstripe blazer if you were feeling spiffy. Also, no beards. Ben stood out like a sore thumb, but then again, so did I.

Finally, Ben’s mom called, and we were off to the Cavalier (pirate!) Hotel. After many hugs and hellos and our bikes safely stowed in an empty meeting room, we grabbed a bite at a burger joint, then went back to the hotel and promptly fell asleep, well, at least Laurie and I did. After our much needed afternoon nap, (I had much less of an excuse than Laurie, who took the red-eye) we were off to dinner at the Whiskey Jar.

For those who were unaware, Charlottesville is the home of Thomas Jefferson’s plantation, Monticello. Naturally, we had to check it out. After breakfast at the Blue Moon Diner (every other store was named Blue something-or-other, thanks to the Blue Ridge Mountains) Ben walked to a dealer to rent a car while Laurie and I grabbed some sandwiches for lunch at Feast!, a local new-American styled market, that to my greatest pleasure, had lots and lots of samples.

Ben arrived in a silver VW Passat not long after and took the three of us 5 miles out of town to the plantation. While we waited for our tour of the house to begin, we meandered through the museum; after some remodeling and a new addition, it took ~40 years for the house to be totally completed, only 2 years before Thomas Jefferson’s death on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The house was filled with all sorts of fun gadgets, including 8 clocks, which was apparently unheard of in that time, a dumb waiter, which is a pulley system to deliver wine straight from the cellar to the dining room on the first floor, and a revolving serving door among many others. Jefferson’s bed spread was also hot pink, or ‘crimson’ according to the tour guide.

Outside we learned about what life was like on the plantation and heard many detailed stories about specific individuals who moved up the social ladder or were sent to the south for bad behavior, all because Jefferson was one of those fellows who not only saved every letter he received, but made copies of every letter he wrote with yet another fun gadget, not to mention his prodigious notes about daily temperatures, seasonal harvests, etc.

Fun fact, Jefferson taught himself how to speak Spanish by reading Don Quixote with a Spanish to English dictionary. Dang.

We finished up the day having dinner at Local, a restaurant that as you hopefully may have already guessed, served a lot of local food. The best part about that night was not the raging lighting storm that was happening all around us (we were outside on a covered patio for an enhanced experience), but the banana split we shared for dessert with homemade chocolate, vanilla, and blueberry ice cream and ever so perfectly caramelized bananas. Delish!

Next day we were off to Staunton, pronounced Stanton (ignore the u) to visit the Frontier Cultural Museum, a museum built to show how different cultures influenced and created the American Frontier. We walked through the actual homes (dismantled, shipped to America, and rebuilt) of people from West Africa, Germany, Ireland, and England, and the new homes of these immigrants as they built them in America in the 1740s, 1820s, and 1850s. Ben and I even got to try on a pair of clogs! Brace yourself for a lot of pictures…

West Africa

England

Ireland

Germany

I could have sworn it was further….

Sorry, didn’t take many pictures of the log cabins…

On our way back, we took Laurie on a small tour of the Blue Ridge Parkway, taking her 10 miles in to see some breathtaking views of the Shenandoah valley.

The Blue’s on the Blue Ridge.

For our last night in Charlottesville, we binged on pizza at Mellow Mushroom, quite possibly the best pizza chain I’ve been to. If only they had them in California…. For dessert, ice cream at Arch’s.

Next morning, we hugged and said our goodbyes, the rain pit-pattering softly as we headed off toward different but equally exciting adventures. I quickly became jealous of Laurie’s week on the beaches of Hawaii….

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Tree Blooms

May 20, 2012 – 8:18 pm

On the west coast, flowers bloom close to the ground, with the occasional apple blossom or climbing wisteria vine teasing us from above.
On the east coast, flowers bloom everywhere. Ground, trees, vines, you name it.

We started noticing this change as soon as we got into Tennessee. Not only did the green tunnel expand to encompass purple and white, but puffs of perfume would envelop your senses unexpectedly, causing you to slow down in search of its source.

The reign of the dogwoods began in Tennessee, although down at that altitude, they were at their final stretch. As we got back into the mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains specifically, the dogwoods were at their peak.

“…on the day that I turned twenty-three,
I was curled up underneath the dogwood tree…”

Here are some other trees, some of which I don’t know the name of. As before, if you know it, or would like to correct one of my identifications, please leave a comment!

Enjoy!

1. Magnolia

2. Flame Azalea

3. unknown

4. unknown

5. unknown

6. tulip poplar

7. rhododendron

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BRP: Part ll

May 10, 2012 – 10:51 pm

Cont…

Our hosts in Bryson City, NC (Raquel and Jack) insisted that we visit Tuggle’s Gap Cafe for amazing pie. Raquel also insisted that there was nothing wrong with eating pie at any time of the day. As it happens, we arrived at the cafe 15 minutes or so after breakfast, so naturally we engaged in second breakfast.

Between the hills and the weather, we were definitely ready for a rest day or two when we started our decent into the Roanoke Valley to meet our WS hosts Rob and Lisa.

Only 20 miles outside of the city, we ran into Bob and Kris. Both sporting the brightest orange shirts imaginable, we mistook them for a couple of construction workers, who for whatever reason, were traveling around on bikes, of all things. Turns out they were a very charming older couple (not that construction workers can’t be charming) who were training for their tour across the Northern Tier this summer, west to east. After chatting for what turned out to be 40 min, we bid our farewells and began the descent.

The view of Roanoke far below.

We arranged to meet our host, Rob, at a park just a few miles off the parkway for a mountain biking race he was taking part in. Being a kind and inclusive host, Rob asked if either of us would like to enter the race. Ben accepted the offer. Having acquired a mountain bike from one of Rob’s friends, Ben signed up for the beginners section (youth, beginners, sport, and expert all rode the same track but did a different number of loops). Before he rode off to the start, I told Ben one thing, “Don’t get hurt.”

To my surprise (Ben has never competed in a mountain biking race before, let alone ever done any real mountain biking) Ben was the first person to cross the finish line. I guess all those mountains payed off!
However, my astonishment was short lived – I couldn’t help but notice all the blood.

Okay, there wasn’t a lot of blood, and he didn’t “feel” hurt, he just ripped a few holes in shirt. Seeing him totally elated in adrenaline from both racing and placing made it all worth it – for the both of us. The gold 8 track trophy didn’t hurt either.

Until he took his shirt off… !!!

Part of the reason why we decided to stop in Roanoke was to duck out of the forecasted rain. The other reason was because of the song, Wagon Wheel, which we were both singing through the entirety of the parkway. Country Roads was also popular.

Finally, the forecast did what it was supposed to do, and we spent the whole day in a coffee shop watching our bikes get a much needed wash.
After some grocery shopping and sightseeing when the rain cleared, we went out to dinner with our hosts and their sons, stopping for dessert at an old soda fountain shop called, Pops. We both got the Broadway, which is a chocolate soda float with coffee ice cream with chocolate chunks. It was absolutely delicious.

Next day, after much detouring due to some serious flooding on the bike path, we made it back to the park where Ben won the race, and decided to stay in the campground not to far away to avoid getting to Charlottesville too early. Or at least that is the excuse we used.
The park had a beautiful overlook of the city.

Also the largest manmade star in the U.S.

Marea, Ben told me you always were on the look out for the biggest blank ever. It was a good excuse to get Ben to pose in front of it.

Do you see what I see?

30 miles or so to the Peaks of Otter, the location of the only hotel ON the parkway, rooms going at $112 a night, without a TV, without cell reception, without a phone. Literally a bed and a bathroom. We stayed at the closed campsite not to far up the road for free, with pretty much the same accommodations (or lack thereof). Before dinner we took a hike up Sharp Top Mountain, which had a 360 degree view of the valley. Apparently back in the day, Virginians thought Sharp Top was the tallest mountain in Virginia and even sent a piece of it to the Smithsonian. Turns out the mountain right next to it, Flat Top Mountain, is about 300 ft taller. Whoops!

We ran into the first tourists we saw on the entire BRP, two young guys, between high school and college, traveling from New Hampshire to Columbia.

Lots of fog over the next couple of days…

At parts you could only see 20 ft in front of you. It was so dense that any exposed hair was immediately coated with dew/frost.

Spent the last night on the parkway at yet another closed picnic area, this time pitching our tent shamelessly out in the open. We met two AT hikers who were a little more stealthy about their tent placement, but glad that they weren’t the only ones breaking the rules.

Last day, only 9 miles, ALL DOWNHILL. We stopped at a working farm exhibit and saw a spring house, which is literally a house built over a spring, using it to refrigerate things like milk, cheese, and beer. Pretty neat.
We were hoping to find a nice little diner at the end of the parkway to have breakfast (we had depleted our once overflowing bounty of food). No such luck. But! Only 4 miles away, once again ALL DOWNHILL, was a nice little place called Blue Mountain Brewery. All thoughts of pancakes and bacon flew right out of our non-existent windows.

We both enjoyed their Full Nelson Pale Ale.

Only 20 miles to go to Charlottesville!

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Parkway Redux

May 10, 2012 – 8:59 pm

You’ve probably noticed by the clarity, and photography, that Laney’s been doing most of the posting lately. She took over the keyboard for a couple reasons, the main being that we only have one keyboard. I don’t lack motivation to write, but I’ve found the process doesn’t go well with camping. Too much dirt, a lack of tables/power outlets, trying to find a place to prop a phone up in your nylon cave while yoga posing for maximum typing efficiency and minimum kicking of your partner–it just doesn’t usually come together. I guess Laney makes better use of our cafe time. I’m too busy drinking coffee to do much else usually.

Ok… so we left you in Asheville, the artisan hippie midpoint in our grand parkway to parkway plan, conceived in Louisiana. As a cyclist, looking at maps of the eastern US, the Natchez Trace Parkway (NTP) and Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP), once you leave aside the Inconvenience of Tennessee (IOT), start looking like I-5 to a tourer who’s been stitching a route together from half forgotten scraps of country road. A grand north-south thoroughfare! no traffic controls for 900 miles! max speed limit 45! free calf massages in every campground! The roads in Louisiana could make anyone a dreamer.

So with great anticipation, and an assist from Barney and his bike rack, we embarked from the Folk Art Museum on the BRP just outside of Asheville. This is a recommended stop for anyone in the area. Best exhibits: woodcuts, hand-dyed and quilted abstract fabric art, and highly impractical yet exquisite turned wood… vessels? sculptures? Sorry readers, photography not allowed.

With a greater appreciation of the potential inner form of the dense stands of trees around us, we slowly started winding our way toward the tallest prominence east of the Mississippi, Mt. Mitchell. Slower than usual, since the BRP lacks services directly on the route. And since “Ridge” is truly the most apt part of the name, any side excursions mean a steep decent and then a big climb for that tasty burger you were contemplating at the end of the day. Our saddlebags bulged with more than the usual food.

Our abundance of provisions actually occasioned a full-on comedy of errors later that evening. After a lot of climbing, stunning vegetated landscapes rippling out under endless clouds, we pulled into an abandoned picnic area (one of many we’d appropriate over the next week, as almost all facilities on the BRP are closed in April) and ran through our usual campy rituals with one addition–the hanging of the food. For the first time on the trip, we actually had to worry about some ravenous, cub-laden mother bear reminding us of our place in nature sometime in the middle of the night.

So we begin the ceremony: solemnly heft a rock and assess for proper size and weight; walk slowly in circles, eyes heavenward until a branch of the height and length as proscribed by those backpackers who came before you appears; firmly attach rock to your length of chord, toss over branch, haul up food and tie off by whatever method you suspect the bear will deem less of a joke when she stumbles across it. I always felt like the best potential for comedy lay in the step where you tie something to a rock and throw it high directly over your head, or when the bear easily dispatches all your precautions with some stupid animal trick. However that night, if you watched from the bushes, you would have seen two humans so completely overladen with Clif Bars, tins of fish, tortillas, and bags of nuts that even lifting it off the ground was a serious undertaking. With the weight of it all and the friction of the rope, we were completely defeated at the start. I put on gloves so I could pull harder, but with all of our combined straining, the rope only stretched, and the food undulated gently five feet off the ground, assailable by an enterprising raccoon. Finally we found a really long branch and managed to push/pull our food out of danger and retired to the tent to contemplate the simpler days of January, when my main problem was how to hoist a half-ton log into the air.

A hard climb out of Asheville rewards us with some typically expansive BRP views

So typical, in fact, that Laney has already tired of them as we pull into another turnout.

Fortunately, the steepness of the BRP, and our expedition-weight packing wasn’t as much of a concern as it might be normally. While riding less than 60 miles in a day usually makes both of us a little antsy, we’d scheduled a visit with my Mom in Charlottesville and it turned out we’d left ourselves plenty of time to dawdle. A forecast of rain in the afternoon seemed like a good excuse to ride 20 miles and then spend some quality time assessing my recent hammock purchase.

The rain showed up lighter and later than promised, and we scoffed a little at pessimistic weather forecasting. Turns out the clouds were not playing, and for the next few days they let us know about it. The temperature dropped from “chill that feels nice to exercise in” to “oh wow, that’s ice in my beard” over the next few days. We both started to realize how quickly temperature modulation gets difficult in cold, hilly terrain. Despite the cold, you still sweat pack-muling your way up these ancient hills, then thanks to the wonders of evaporative cooling… frostbite! Kidding a little, but I started spending a lot of time mentally designing layers of clothing that could be removed and replaced quickly while riding a bike (ask me about my Velcro cape!). The low point came one evening when we had to move the tent from its original pitch to a more sheltered one behind a dumpster for the dual purpose of avoiding a tree falling on us in the night and making sure the tent didn’t collapse in the wind.

We woke up to an inch of snow, and rangers who drove through the parking lot without bothering to chastise us for camping illegally in a picnic area. I don’t blame them as I usually try to avoid talking to the obviously insane myself.

Laney, modeling an experimental cold-weather riding outfit. Yes that is a sock on her hand. (I must add, Ben was the one who inspired the ever fashionable sock-mitten. To my distaste, they worked pretty darn well)

Getting to know the lee side of yet another windbreak in one of our many “unauthorized” camping locations.

The terrain mellows a little when you get to Virginia.

to be continued…

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