Short but good day

So I woke up this morning behind the Episcopal church where I camped out last night and got going.  It's sunday and I have no gig planned anywhere so I just look for a church to attend randomly when that is the case.  I found one church but they were not starting for an hour and a half so I pressed on.  Then I found a church where people where walking in which is always a good sign.  I met a guy whose name is George with is mom Heriot.  She was in her 90's.  They invited me in to sit with them.  This Church was established in the early colonial days and even more importantly to me right now is that it was starting in five minutes which is what I was looking for.  So I went in with george and heriot.  After Church there was a guy who invited me to his house.  His name is Jack Haar.  We had Lunch and it turns out that he cycled this route last year and him and I were on the same route for a while so that was a cool coincidence.  The next coincidence was that him and his wife are not really episcopalian but ELCA Lutherans, which was kind of funny.  And even more was that He had a Medical student (he's a professor) doing his doctorate work on Brain Cancer medicine.  I forget exactly how he explained it because...yeah, I don't do medicine, I take it.

We had a lot of different stuff to talk about and we did as he took me around in his Model A Ford which was a nice convertible and it was ride on a pleasantly warm day, a ride that didn't ware down my quads any more : ) .  I was going to go and stay in the town 9 miles up the road, but he talked about having cyclists stay at his home and I asked if I might be able just to stake out here for the night and get some blogging and picture down loading done, so here I am blogging and down loading pictures.  I hope you like them.

This house was built in 1790 which makes my 1890 house I grew up in look pretty new.

I should have maybe road a bit more today but this is nice.  I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow : /

Peace,

Joe

Pictures for week 7 in review

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Anna Lake

HELLO!

Great day of cycling today!  It started out bitter cold and by bitter I mean like 35 degrees so not that bitter.  I packed up my stuff from behind the church where I was staked out. and went back to the place general store where I had such a good dinner of mashed potato, gravy and chicken legs last night and this morning started out with sausage biscuits and gravy and then went back for seconds and got the breakfast mess which was more biscuits and gravy, eggs, bacon and hash.  I ate it all but the hash which I didn't really care for.  They were all impressed that I could eat so much.  I was just glad that I found such a great place to get such good food!

It was such a nice sunny autumn day today.  Leaves are constantly falling as I cycle by the oak trees.  I started thinking about my tree back home.  It's a pine tree and I hope no one ever cuts it down or at least not for a good 100 years.  I planted it in 3rd grade and it was the first tree I got to grow.  The previous earth day trees always would die.  I really should plant more trees.  It's something that I like doing and I love watching them grow knowing I planted them.

I had lunch by a guys driveway and he came out to see if I needed anything.  I didn't really but I went inside to fill up my water.  I was greeted by his two dogs that alerted him to my presence and they were two tiny tiny dogs called yosha teriers or something like that.  They had little faces like walkees or the ewalks from star wars...you can tell I'm not much of a star wars buff.  :)

I got to the tent indicating a camping site on my map and there was no store...then I remembered a boarded up store I passed a few miles back and thought...hmmm, I bet that was it and it never got taken off the cycling maps.  So I pressed on until I found another church.  I had the amazing backpacker strawberry chocolate dessert I've been saving since Carl and I climbed our 14er and didn't eat it.  So, thanks Carl, it was good.

Now I"m going to eat a snickers to send my hunger to Germany and go to bed.  once again.  I'll post pictures later once I find a good place to plug in.

Happy Trails!

Joe

oh and why I named this post Anna lake is because I passed a really cool lake called Anna lake, So Mom, there is a lake out here waiting for ya with your name on it!

Charlottesville, Blue parkway ridge

Sorry, I"m getting behind.  I'm getting close the the coast.  five more day's and this dream that I've been in the process of chasing down since june of 2008 will finally be accomplished.  There have been many more obstacles than I ever could have imagined but now all over come, I'm very close.

I'm in Charlottesville which is where one of my most favorite musicians in the whole wide world came out of, Dave Matthews.  The pastor took me around to the thomas jefferson sites and then to millers where Dave got started.  (was a little more excited about millers : )  

Last night the concert went very well.  THere were a lot of people there so that was fun.  We had a lot of pizza before hand which didn't do wonders for my singing voice, but oh well.  It was a very looooong day getting to the gig.  I'm not as strong as I was last year, still building to get back to that point so 60 miles pulling my cart was a long day.  And I cycled the rest of Blue ridge Parkway, though I got the worst climb out of the way the evening before.  Someone said it was the worst climb on the tour.  I'm not sure but it was definently top 5.  I climbed for 55 minutes between 2 and 3 mph and that was as fast as I could go.   Sometimes I do those climbs in a lot of short bursts, but I conqured this mountain without getting off the bike, so that was pretty good.  I had one more little scare that I thought I was going to crash the rig but I regained control of the bike, somehow.  I was looking down to see what was making some noise.  I forgot that I probably should have been watching the road and I veared off, hit the breaks and sort of fish tailed or jack knifed my bike and trailer back and forth a few times before I regained control  Wheeew,  it was close.   I camped up on top of the blue ridge parkway at 3200 feet.  It was in the 20's that night, but I was all good in my 20 degree bag,  but I did have to close up the face hole on the mummy bag, which I don't usually have to do.

I'm tired but I'll get a few miles in today.  primarily a rest day today.

pictures later.

peace.

PICTURES for week 6 in review

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11/2eccentric cyclist and hitchhiking backpackers

November 2

Today was a great sunny day on my way to Lexington VA!  I met some interesting folks along the path as well which always makes the trek a little bit more fun.  I was well rested after my hotel stay and watching the packer viking game yesterday, sad for the pack but great for Favre.  I thought I was done with the mountains but as it turns out I have one really REALLY big climb today.  The cyclist I met along the path said it was the worst on the whole route, but we'll see about that.  This route has had some pretty insane climbs.  

I came across a couple of backpackers today.  They had two sets of names, trail names and real names.  Their were nina and chuck a.k.a 'something fire' as I can't make out the word on the video and bug man I told them my name and that I didn't have an interesting trail name.  I was skeletor on halloween, but I wouldn't pick that as my alias.   They were hiking the appalachian trail so I was eager to learn a little bit about their travels as I think I might put that adventure on the bucket list.  They were trying to hitchhike a ride to get to a post office where they mailed food and supplies but having little luck when we crossed paths.

My other interesting encounter today as I briefly mentioned earlier was with a cyclist who was a little crazy.  I was off the transamerica cycling route and I intentionally did this so I could go see the Natural rock bridge.  The road was just a little bit busier and a little hillier.  I met him coming the other way (a local cyclist, not a touring) and he tours around and looks at me wide eyed saying, your off the trail, I said I know but I wanted to come this way "No, you want to be on the trail, the route is much better"  I showed him that I had the maps and this slight deviation was intentional.  "You should get on up ahead" and he starts giving me directions...and I'm just a few miles from town.  He went on about did I know about this and that and the other thing.  I like talking to people and I like learning things but this guy was really annoying and I don't meet to many people cycling I consider that annoying.  I've cycled over 3000 miles on the route, so I know about it.  I just let him talk for a while and then said I had to make it to my gig, so we parted with me thinking "Good grief!"

11/3

So this morning I got into my Blue dog cycling outfit witch used to be a bit tight, but now fits pretty well.  That makes me happy.  I've lost about a good 12 lbs, maybe 15 on the tour (and yes mom, I'm eating enough : P ) so that's cool.  On that note I'm going to go have my free continental breakfast!  

Packer Viking day Nov 1

So todays objective was to get to Buchanan, VA and get to my hotel so I could watch the packer viking game.  I've been looking forward to this game since before the season began.  I wasn't sure how I was going to react to favre coming back in Purple to play in Green Bay.  And the verdict was that I'd much rather him be dressed in green and gold but since he was cast out, I was glad that he came back and kicked Green Bay.  I hope his release goes down as the largest botch of Thomson and McCarthy's Career.  Favre is my favorite athlete ever and though I am a huge packer fan, because of how things played out I'm an even bigger fan of what ever team Favre is running as long as he wants to play.  It was a good game.  Green Bay didn't even hardly show up to play until the second half and by then it was too late.