June 4, 2002
13 min. read
This post is part of the Trans-Am series.
Last night as I finished typing my daily entry, a couple came in late from the trail. Caesar and Maud, if I remember correctly. They have been hiking the AT really slow, starting in Maine around 11 months ago. They wanted to see the trail during all the seasons, and said that the winter in Pennsylvania wasn’t too bad. We talked quite a bit about bike touring and my recumbent setup. They want to get some recumbent trikes and bicycle tour around Cuba. I gave Caesar some web site addresses for learning more information about what he needs to proceed.
I hope you are enjoying the tour reports, when they come in. It has been a struggle sometimes to get them typed up, when there is so much I could be doing. I didn’t get in the tent last night till after midnight, because I was catching up for all of you.
I woke up around 7:45 and started packing up my stuff. Since the weather was nice, I was able to leave the tent well ventilated last night. This means that the rain fly had little, if any, condensation on the inside. The only part I had to dry out was the ground cloth bottom. It seems to always get moisture seeping up from the ground.
I headed towards the bike shop and picked up a can of Halt spray. I hope all I hear about the dogs in Kentucky isn’t true, but I don’t want to run out of this stuff. I left my junk sunscreen in “The Place” for some hiker to use if they want. I found some small tubes of the same sunscreen that has been working well for me in the local outfitters, except it is SPF 30 instead of SPF 48. Much better than nothing though. All my parts that are exposed are getting tanned well, so the SPF 48 isn’t a total requirement. By the way, if you want some really good sweat proof sunscreen, hook yourself up with some Coppertone Sport Ultra Sweatproof. It is in a blue bottle and has survived my serious volume of sweat up some of these hills. Can’t speak for it’s waterproofness while swimming, but I bet it does well.
I have been hand washing laundry for all of the trip so far. It works for a few wearings, but then you need a real laundry. I hit the laundry mat that I passed coming in last night and started a load of wash. I headed across the street to get two chicken salad sandwiches on wheat and some chips. I went through and organized my bags, including change fishing. That is getting all the change that has found it’s way inside the various pockets of my rear “handlebar” bag and putting it all in one ziploc. I then through the load in the drier and started packing up to leave. A few hikers that I met last night at “The Place” were in to do a few loads. I packed up the dry laundry and got on the road a little after 11.
There were some hills on the way to Meadowview, as I rode into and out of a few river valleys. By the time I got into Meadowview, it was seriously hot, getting hotter. My thermometer was indicating 105 degrees while I was riding over some newly laid really “black” top. I hit the diner in town to get out of the heat and get some water. The public works department had the great sense to work on the water main feeding the store during lunch hour, but luckily I got my one glass of ice water before the water quit. I had the lunch special of Meatloaf and two sides (green beans with corn and coleslaw). I ate slow and cooled down. A few of the locals were interested in my journey and we talked for a bit. By the time I was ready to leave, the water still wasn’t on. One if the patrons asked what direction I was heading and told me that there was a Grocery store out on 80 in about 3 miles. I headed out and stopped there.
I pulled into the grocery after riding past the crews fixing the water lines and a couple hills. I grabbed a Gatorade and sat down to look through some of the Arizona Highways sitting there. I read an interesting article about a guy’s ultralight type aircraft that he built for taking aerial photographs. He talked about the stability of the plane and how he flies with the stick hooked to his leg, as he uses both hands to shoot pictures. There were a few examples of his work and it was breathtaking. I can’t wait till I get out West and get some similar views. The bread man came around 2 PM. The bread guy was new and he ran his route a little different that the old one I guess. I didn’t see this as a big event. However, we revisited this at dinner.
I left the lovely AC of the store and headed back into the heat. There was going to be a monster climb today, and I wanted to get started. I don’t climb real fast, so I need some time to get it over with. I had started listening to The Shipping News that I have on MP3 from the Indianapolis Libraries Books on CD collection. This looked like it might have been an interesting movie when the adds came out, but I haven’t seen it. The book is almost always supposed to be better. Listening to something makes the miles go by faster, when you aren’t in the mood to just think. (This is especially true during climbs, because all you are thinking is how steep, long, or hot it is…)
The climb in question is 4 miles long with many switchbacks. The average grade is around 7%, or better than 1,500 foot climbing in 4 miles. It was really hard. I started up the climb at 2:30 and pulled over the top past 4:30. Unfortunately there weren’t any great views going up. All you could see were the trees lining the closest switchback. I walked about as much as I rode. Listening to the story unfold helped me pass the time, but I was constantly sweating the entire climb. I drank a great deal of water, but I am still dehydrated a little. I will be drinking water throughout the night to rehydrate.
The GPS doesn’t do mileage well with a non-straight path of travel. These switchback were anything but straight. I felt really beat up when I was at 3.1 miles up the climb and stopped for yet another rest. I wound up peaking at 3.2 miles on the GPS, but the others confirmed that the climb was 4 miles+. The top is at a county line and had a 76 bike route sign, not to mention the road seriously slanting away. I stopped the bike, gave a victory yell and walked back down the hill a ways for a picture.
I should mention the dog that climbed with me for a while. I’m not sure where he came from, but he was a friendly black Labrador. I met up with him at around 2 miles into the climb and he plodded along with my to the top. I tried to give him some water, but he didn’t like the whole shooting water near his head with my water bottles thing. I left him behind as I started down the hill, which was equally as steep and as switchbacked. I had to brake quite a bit because of bad sight lines and serious turns. I have learned the art of leaning way into the turns to keep the bike almost level. This reduces the chance of dragging bags in really fast corners. I have touched down a few times on each side, with minimal damage.
There was one serious switchback near the end of the hill where I had to really slow it down. I came to a full stop to shoot some water around my rims and was greeted with some instant steam. I’ve found the one disadvantage with my 20” rims. Although, I have stopped a few times on the descents and haven’t lost a tube to heat yet. One of the guys I’ve been camping with the last few days lost his front tube coming down off the Blue Ridge Parkway (which was a little steeper than today’s downhill.) He was going slow enough that he got it stopped ok, but admitted that it was pretty hairy for a little while.
There were a couple of decent climbs once the major decent stopped and my legs were not happy. They thought the 4 mile climb was a full days work and were not interested in any overtime. I pulled into the Elk Garden Methodist Church Hostel for the night. Under the picnic area were the two couples from the last few nights, but no Mike. He has to be finished by August 5th, so he probably did a couple more miles today. He was the first one out of “The Place” this morning.
I got some water and started rehydrating. The supposed grocery before the hostel was no longer open. I was planning on digging into my reserves of another rice and tuna night, but was asked if I made it to the grocery. When I replied in the negative, I was told that they had food here. Like the Cookie Lady, it is covered by the donations of the cyclists. I asked if anyone had ate and none had. They had went to the store though. I noticed spaghetti and sauce in the available food, and suggested a pot of spaghetti.
Everyone agreed and we started a large kind of potluck dinner. We had spaghetti, a salad (lettuce and corn with Thousand Island dressing), and some Vienna sausages for meatballs. it was great. We had a nice group dinner out at the picnic area using real plates and real silverware. Then we had some chocolate pudding for dessert. I was on the cooking crew, so I didn’t have to cleanup. I prefer cooking to the cleaning anyway.
During the dinner conversation talk turned back to the store I stopped at, where the bread man showed up. (See, I told you I would come back to this.) Gerrúl and Meta had stopped there and wanted to get some bread. When he told me that they were unsuccessful in finding bread there, I told him that the bread guy had come at 2.
“Two o’clock!” he said. “Two o’clock!”
I wasn’t sure where he was going with it, maybe me getting there so late or something. He said that the store owner told them that it could come at any time and they waited a while for it. He was not happy with that much wasted time when the bread didn’t come for hours later.
Bob suggested that they could head back over there and pick some up now, but the look on his face suggested exectly what he thought of suggesting doing that climb again. Bread is only worth so much, I guess. :)
I then got a chance to clean up in the bathroom. I filled the sink up with water and washed my shirt, then used it for a sponge bath. I also did the head dunk that I started in Troutville city park. You get the sink almost full of water then dunk your head in. You then let the water run and are able to clean the hair in the back too. It feels great. I then washed my shorts and socks and hung them up to dry.
We all sat around outside talking about various things. Bob (who I incorrectly labeled as John in earlier posts) works IT support for a large bank. We do some similar things and talked a bit about each others work. He has worked out a similar arrangement as I did for a leave of absence from work. I talked with Gerrúl about his work, before he retired. We got onto the subject of robotics and he explained how they used a robot to weld up 0.005 thick aluminum. It isn’t possible with a human hand. We are all three technical engineering types, which I found interesting. Adam and Mike were both in school for Computer Science degrees, so they both had talked with me previous nights about my job and the industry in general.
We continued talking out side and had tea and coffee. Then we started getting setup for bed. We are sleeping in the main room of the church. I’m setup just in front of the first set of pews. I headed outside to see if I could call home on that one bar of Analog cellular coverage that I had, but stopped short. I noticed 4 young raccoons walking across the yard. I went back inside and remembered that I was charging my batteries for my camera. I dug through my bag to get other batteries and quickly put them in and ran outside.
It was really dark and my flash isn’t too powerful. I took the first few, but wasn’t close enough to get any light for the picture. They started to the tree, and I was able to get some dark pictures. I was not quite ready to rush in close to them, because I didn’t see mommy around anywhere. I didn’t want her coming at me upset. Pretty soon I realized that there little whimpering cries were looking for mom. I wonder if she was taken by another animal or hit by a car or something.
Then the friendly (to us) cocker spaniel came around the corner. He was looking to get some ‘coon. I scared the raccoons up the tree and the dog wasn’t able to initially get one. I was able to get some pictures of these guys now as I got in close. The dog was circling the tree and barking. This startled the raccoons even further and they started to climb higher. I heard a cry and a thump as one of the little guys fell out of the tree. The dog was on it real quick and was going for the kill. It looked like he died pretty quick, but the dog kept chewing on him to make sure for a few minutes. Pretty soon the ‘coons up in the tree quieted down and the dog didn’t focus much more on them. He sniffed around the tree a while then carried his kill back behind the house. I came back inside after neither party did anything else.
Then I typed all this up. It’s now 11:30 and I need to get some sleep. It is amazing that these take an hour to get typed up. I know I will be glad to have them when I’m done with the trip and I hope you enjoy reading along (as soon as I get good enough cell coverage again to upload them!)
Rosedale, VA
Church Site: 36 deg 56.002 min N, 81 deg 57.944 min W, elev 2268 ft.
Part 21 of 48 in the Trans-Am series.
Series Start | Day 15 - Wytheville to Damascus | Day 17 - Rosedale to Breaks