Saturday, 1 September 2012
On the way into town I saw something interesting. The first Obama sign in a front garden. I've ridden 4000 miles across 10 states and so far the front gardens of America are all mitt Romney...it probably means nothing but if it does the Obama needs to get a better gardening advisor.
I've been in Charlottesville a few hours and have met a guy in a car who offered to let me stay at his place...cool...he road same route last year I think. Then I've met lots of Mexicans....of course....they.are nice peeps and run the corner store where loitering is forbidden under Mexican law.
Here I have a dry room out of the storm...air con WiFi and three bananas...oh and green tea!
Today I rest. Tomorrow I will get deliberatly lost in Charlottesville and explore the town.
I've decided to stay on route and not go.up to the battlefields around fredricksburg. It's raining and humid and I just want to get to the coast now.
So....I think I'm going to tAke time out around the Richmond battlefields instead and be content with that.
It is very humid here still and I'm sweating buckets on the bike.
I decided to slow down a bit as I wad tired...last night was a sleepless night due to the express trains honking all night long!
At one point I took a wrong turn and rode about two miles in the wrong direction....ill blame the GPS even though it aS clearly my fault for being asleep lol!
Buccanan and Lexington ate both nice small towns. Lexington has lots of small shops and is one of the nicest towns I have seen all ride. It plays a lot on the civil war and I went to stonewalled jacksons tomb...a confederate field Marshall who seems to have been demi god like status here.
Then while I was pulled over on the side of the street looking at my map a Japanese woman started pleading with me not to give her a parking ticket...to funny!
I got some advice from the visitor centre on civil war sites...and then headed to subway...who seem to be sole providers of fresh food on this route. Here I was submitted to a full on life story by some sdangwrously fat woman who decided to tell me how she couldn't fit into an airplane seat on her trip to Hawaii last year...I resisted the temptation to give her directions to the nearest bicycle shop.
Finally after a hot and humid 60 miles I got to the campground. Here I have to advise any cyclists planning this trip to cruise on by the mallard duck campground outside Lexington...the guy is an arse and there are more facilities in city parks for free than there are here . Anyway its only one night and all I'm doing here is sleeping.
All around this campground there are people shooting rifles...I hope at targets and nothing else...oh and now there are chainsaws and big dogs barking and loud country music.....what is it about people in the mountain valleys....I blame in breeding myself.
Tomorrow um out if here ans off up a mountain called vesuvious. I'm told it'd a tough but pretty climb.
The views from the ridge were wonderful...both west down into the shenendoah valley and east.
I stopped more than usual to tAke Pictures and also gasping for water at the top and had a chat with a roadie riding the same climbs today.
Or was then I noticed my computer has tripped over the 4000 mile mark for this ride.
The downhills were steep fast and full of sharp bends...great fun!
I stopped at a peach farm and had cool necterenes picked locally ans peach milkshake...then decided to head for charlottesville...but it was getting way to humid and hot and is already done about 50 miles over and along the mountains and the blue ridge parkway. I found a small store in Whitehall and was told I could camp for free at the community centre. I had soup with veg and pasta and beef and a tub of strawberry icecream and two iced teas.
The day conconcluded with a lovely sunset ...behind the mountains I had just ridden over. I looked back west as the sunset and said to myself...I've ridden 4000+ miles to get here...almost there mate.
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