11/13/09 Friday the 13th. Yorktown to Chesapeake super 8
How strange it is to look at the final stretch of 26 miles. I’ve came thousands of miles over great stretches of desert and over many mountain passes and tomorrow is it.
Today started out kinda fun and different. I got to know cole a bit more. He is a pretty cool guy who is the head sheff at the Duke hotel in Yorktown. The power was out all morning and it was pretty blustery outside. They call this a Nor-Easter and it did a heck of of a lot of damage, just as much as a hurricane might have. Cole and I went to 7-11 and got some breakfast. Everyone comes together a lot more when the electricity is down. Life really revolves around electricity. I only had 10% left on my computer so I looked up directions on google and quickly wrote them down as I modified them off of hwy 17 as much as I could.
The wind wasn’t as bad today as it was yesterday but I enjoyed reading the newspapers about all the damage that was done yesterday. I biked through it and it almost blew me over a few times. I also learned today that when I set out on 17 from Yorktown yesterday, that I went the wrong way, so It was a good thing that I decided to go back to town and stay there.
The highlight of today was going over the james river bridge. I don’t know why they call it a river because it is clearly a bay. It was about 5 miles long. Leading up to it I wondered how it was going to be, if there was going to be a path on the side for bikes. Going up to it there was a sidewalk but then the sidewalk disappeared, I continued, annoyed but then I saw that the bridge was still closed. I don’t know why the bridge was still closed as the water doesn’t come up. I thought about turning around, but then I had no Idea how I would get across as there ar no ferries and I just didn’t want to deal with the mess that would come with trying to figure out a different way across, plus, the road is closed which means no traffic! Sweet! Not to mention I had a Nor-Easter to my back. I decided to go over it. I saw a car go a ways a head of me with white flashing lights. I figured I would get busted as I’m sure plenty of people saw me, but I cycled 25mph over it and figured if I just did it really fast that that single patrol car might not circle back in time. Luckily I was right. About 2 miles after the bridge I saw a patrol car going the other direction. I’m betting he got a call about a cyclist on the bridge, but he didn’t catch me on it so I was home free.
The Rain Hit me pretty good for a while in the late afternoon and I did get caught in the dark but at least I had some pretty bright LEDs working for me, and an Orange reflective bike. Eventually I did end up at a Super 8, so it’s nice to be dry. Oh how I long for those days that I wasn’t constantly biking in rain and I would just find a shelter verses a hotel room. I’m glad that people supported me on my ride more than I needed cause I’ve been using it lately.
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