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We spent 13 days and travelled 731miles in Virginia
We left the Victory Monument in Yorktown on Thursday 20th April. Taking a side trip to Williamsburg, the locals were surprised to see the Union Jack once again flying in their streets. It was an interesting sight, with horse and carts in the streets, and the town folk dressed in the costume of times passed.
Tonight was our first night in our new tent, and we were finding it hard to find fresh food. The camp sites were only just opening, it is still early in the season we were told. The store hasn't been stocked yet. Ah well beans again.
This area has a lot of history with regards to the Civil War conflicts of 1862. We certainly got a feel of it, cycling along the very quiet, shady roads. All of a sudden we would come across a battle site, and we could imagine the two armies facing each other with cannon and musket, across a field that was surrounded by forest. It was very interesting and very sad.
Cycling through rural Virginia past huge farms, racing stables, beautiful houses and lush rich farm land. It is not hard to imagine that there is a lot of money here. It was early spring and every thing was blooming, the days were warming up, and when it rained it was usually warm rain. but we were getting more sun than rain.
We were also getting better at foraging, finding the little country stores, and learning to get food when it was available. It seems that most locals take the cars to the big hypermarkets, which of course are always out of town. That option was not practical for us.
Having been on nice flat roads for the past 7 days, we were now beginning to climb. Today we hit Charlottesville, a large town where we had an evening down town, real food a couple of beers and a real bed. It was nice to have some interaction with something other than mosquitoes.
Now we were climbing,in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the climbs hit us hard, especially Jeff, he had a lot of weight in the trailer. Today we met a very special lady, June Curry the cookie lady. She has been supplying water, cookies and shelter to cyclists for 35 years.
We spent the night in the bike house, and enjoyed the evening chatting with June who as you can imagine had some wonderful stories to tell.
The next few days were very hard,up and down up and down it was relentless, the sun was beating down on us, the buzzards were flying over head, just waiting for us to keel over. Having said that the scenery was stunning, and the Forest was full of deer, woodpeckers and friendly squirrels. One of them chewed a small hole in the tent, trying to get at our trail mix. (little monster) We met up with a couple of fellow bikers who had been trailing us. They were moving faster than us so we, said hello and goodbye and off they went.
So far we have stayed in peoples homes, camp sites,churches, and now in the local park. Where we met Cecil and Kay the park keepers, they were so nice they told us where to get good food, in the evening they took us up the hill in their car and showed us the Roanoke star, which can be seen for 60 miles by air and 12 miles by land at night. They even put the heating on in the toilet block so we could have a warm wash in the morning. We came across this hospitality so many times on our trip.
After 18 days in the saddle, we were getting fitter, good at finding food, making lots of new friends, and generally getting comfortable with the routine of being on the road. We also said goodbye to Virginia and hello to Kentucky
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