Sunday 10/25 Appalachia- Lucky day and stay with Susan & Donnie

Sunday 10/25  Appalachia- Lucky day and stay with  Susan & Donnie

so my lucky day started this morning when I went to the college cafeteria and they were closed,  but the guy comes to the door and he lets me in to get a bowl of cerial and juice.  Walking around the cafeteria reminded me of my college years.  The campus was a really cool campus which is apparently a “working campus” meaning all the students work 10 hrs/week and graduate with very little debt or debt free.   I set out on the road around 11am when I saw the windows on the cars in the lot were becoming a little defrosted as it was a chilly night.  I knew that I was going to have a few mountains to get over today, so that would keep me warm.

The colors were sweet as always here in the mountains.  The climbs were challenging but I’ve heard so much talk about the steepness of these mountains for the last umpthousand miles that I’ve worked them up in my head steeper than they could possibly be.  I just stick the bike in the granny gear and make my way up the mountain for 40 min at 3.5 miles per hour.  Today I had my new compass mounted to my bike…and by mounted I mean strapped on with electrical tape.

So I was going to try to find the Viking game somewhere today but there are no bars in these small towns.  I ask people where there might be a sports bar and they look at me like ‘what’s a sports bar?”.   In Wisconsin you’d be hard pressed to find a town without a bar or grill to catch the game at.  I didn’t catch it and that’s ok cause they lost.  I knew the odds of Favre running the table was small, but how cool would that have been.

When the sun went down and I was trying to figure out where I should lay my head down tonight I wasn’t having a lot of luck finding churches.  I like camping behind them because you are not bothered, usually the church doesn’t mind.  I got off the main road I was on thinking about how I lucked out last night and got to be inside.  I said to God, “hey how about someplace to stay up here pretty soon” and about a half mile later I saw a church.  I got closer and realized it was a barn that looked like a church that had a steeple.  Disappointed I passed waving to the guy coming out of it.  Then I thought, I should turn around and ask him if I could stay in his yard.  Nah, I don’t want to bother him, but then I did turn around.  And he wasn’t outside and I wasn’t going to bother him in his barn.  So I turn around again and there he is standing there behind his trailer much closer than before.  I asked him if there was anywhere up ahead I could camp.  “not for 9 miles and over the big hill “ I told him I probably wouldn’t go that far as it was getting dark.  “Well, you can set up anywhere around here if you want”  So I was in luck.  The he asked if I had dinner and invited me in.  His wife fixed me a wonderful plate of potatoes, beans and meat loaf and buns.  We got to talking.  Susan, his wife, is addicted to Facebook which I thought was funny since she is my moms age and my mom can barely do email on the computer.  After dinner we played with their 1 year old dog, Dixie who loves her red ball and will run all over the house after it.  I laughed a lot.  We continued to play with Dixie as we were watching Sunday night football and it was just a lot of fun that wasn’t expected tonight.  Susan showed me her pictures of her and the Osmonds which she loves to death which was also humorous, especially since she married her husband who’s name is Donnie.  They were both very nice and now tonight I have another place indoors to stay.  I love the unexpected friends that I make on the road that were not planned, by me anyway.