Morning light from the Blue Ridge Parkway
Relaxing in the midst of decades of bike memorabilia at the Cookie Lady’s
Listening to the Cookie Lady as she tells us the one about the Dancing Santa
One of the many overlooks from the Blue Ridge Parkway
A week ago, we were approaching the Blue Ridge Parkway in 90 degree weather. The last few days we have woken up to temperatures in the high 30’s or low 40’s and have finished climbing (and descending) the Appalachians. Yesterday, our route went over two seperate mountain ridges that each included 4 to 5 mile climbs. The day before we had entered Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area (Mt. Rogers is the highest point in Virginia) and found ourselves climbing for about six miles. As we enter Kentucky tomorrow we will begin travelling through the endless rolling hills.
We have been staying at some great places recently. After staying with the Lee family in Radford, VA, we arrived in Wytheville, VA where we visited the library and had a large dinner, and then we stayed in the downtown park after checking in with the local police. The next night we stopped in Damascus, VA where we stayed at a hostel ran by the United Methodist Church. It is there to support the travels of Appalachian Trail hikers and long-distance bikers and it had several rooms full of bunkbeds. There was only one or two other people staying there and then a group of boyscouts camping out in the yard. Lucky for us, the boyscouts had brought back leftover pizza and offered it to us. It was great timing, because at that moment we were scanning the table full of junkfood that had been donated. The people in Damascus seemed great. We asked a few people how to get to the nearest grocery store and then the next thing we knew, one of them was driving us to the store.
When we left Damascus, we knew we had a lot of climbing ahead of us. Actually, Alexa and I must be in pretty good shape because the climbs that had been described to us as ‘hellish’ were not too bad. The bike store in Wytheville had discouraged us from following our route to Damascus because they said the hills would be too rough. We travelled at least sixty miles on Saturday to Damascus and then at least 50 miles on Sunday, and honestly, our main concern has been the constant flow of pickup trucks rather than the steepness of the hills.
Today, we are taking a short day and going around 30 miles to the Breaks Interstate Park on the border of Virginia and Kentucky. We are going to stay in a hotel and take it easy and hopefully enjoy the park that claims to be the ‘Grand Canyon of the South’.
And just as a note, our cell phones have not received service very often at all, so hopefully we’ll be in an area soon where we can check our messages and make some calls.
