4 Days

A quick recap of the first 4 days.

Day 1: Rode just shy 0f 99 miles. At mile 25 I hooked up with a guy named Hank. I met Hank the night before at the beginning of the route. Hank is from Holland. We've been riding together since that time. We camped outside of Ashland VA.

Day 2: Rode about 60 miles. We got lost big time...BIG TIME! We ended up in the town of Mineral VA. Spent the night at the Fire Department. We were told they allowed free camping on their grounds. I thought that meant we could pitch our tent outside of their building...I was wrong. We had use of their bathroom/showers, garage where we kept our bikes right next to the fire trucks, their TV room, and we bunked on the 2nd floor of the building.

Day 3: In Mineral I sent a bunch of stuff home...Too much weight. At the post office a guy named Dan asked us where were were headed. He said he knew of a shortcut that would make the trip 25 miles less. The short cut worked and we were done biking by 2pm. We stayed at a Days Inn on Charlottesville VA.

Day 4...The Blue Ridge Pkwy. We knew this was going to be tough. There were several climbs that were real killers. We started at 6am and reached the pkwy by 10am...Which consisted of several climbs in itself. The pkwy was 33 miles long and it took us 8 hours to complete! The weather was hot! Several climbs of 2000-3000 feet. We were about 65% done when it begin to rain...big rain...buckets. The temp dropped 40 degrees in 30 minutes...the rain turned to sleet...and then hail. I was freezing. At the end of the pkwy we found a bridge and waited out the storm under it. We are staying in Lexington VA at a CIS.

Thanks to Todd, Stacy, and Brad for giving me a call. Hope all is well back home.