Distance: 74 miles Mallard Duck Campground, VA to Charlottesville, VA
Ride Time: 6:39
Average Speed: 11.1 mph
Maximum Speed: 32 mph
Altitude Gain: 6161 feet
Average Temperature: 86
We got an early start this morning. Kathie was held up by a train in Vesuvius and we planned out her route since trailers were not allowed on the road up the mountains. I was told the mountain road was over a 12 percent grade. I don’t think that is right but it was about as hard as I could do with the higher gearing of the Cannondale and platform pedals. I wondered what people were thinking about as they passed me. It felt like I was not even moving. A minivan coming downhill rolled down their window as they approached me and the driver leaned out of the window and yelled, “You’re our hero.” That made me feel better.
I was so happy to get to the summit! I was expecting riding the Blue Ridge Parkway to be nice and level. As it turned out the Blue Ridge Parkway was almost all up hill also. I was wearing down. The scenery was spectacular. As I was riding along, I heard some loud crashing in the trees above me. I had visions of a very large animal running out of the trees. It turned out to be a very large bird that was that was taking off in the tree tops.
The worst part of today was that the Blue Ridge Parkway had just been chip sealed so it was a rough ride. It made me wish even more that I had my Specialized bike with the front suspension. The ride coming down off of the parkway could have been a lot of fun but I didn’t dare go too fast with the loose gravel on the road. I’ve been told that Utah is the only state that chip seals their roads. In my experience of this trip, every state but Kansas has chip sealed roads. Kansas would use asphalt over the old pavement and pack it down with the front end loader they spread it with. The outcome was new pavement that felt like rumble strips. It is hard to win the patched pavement road surface.
We drove over to Sam’s club and got gas, propane and ice. We decided to stay the night in the WalMart parking lot. When we had parked a lady came by walking her dogs. One took off and got one of the ground hogs that were living on the hill just off to the side of the parking lot. While we were eating, we saw the lady come back without the dogs and wash and clean the ground hog up. That was very strange and we wondered what she was trying to accomplish. We had a very hot, humid and sleepless night.
Kathie had to go way out of route to get around the road up to the parkway. We were meeting in Charlottesville. Charlottesville is the home of the University of Virginia. The people on campus were in the mood to only speak to people wearing a mask. On my way into Charlottesville I saw some of the most beautiful horse ranches I have ever seen. When I got within cell phone range, Kathie called and said she was waiting for me at the Mall. I asked a couple of people how to get to the mall and they sent me to the Downtown Mall. As it turned out the Downtown Mall was not the right mall and I ended up cycling back across town to another mall. When I got there the mall security was telling her it was time to move the truck and trailer. I was very tired and took my helmet, sun glasses and rear view mirror off and set them on top to the trailer propane tank.
ThruUSA2 