Day Six- Don't fight with rednecks

We got up around 8 to enjoy coffee with our gracious host in the country store/resort office. The guy was super nice and we talked for about an hour about his adventures including a bizarre experience at some survival class he took a while back. He told us that he's the son of the owner and had a tiny stake in the business with his sister. He also told us that we were lucky that he was there, and not his parents, because they would have probably not let us stay on the grounds in the first place, or would have gutted us for setting up our tents on the property. We soon found out how right he was.
Now I wasn't going to rag on the place, because the son was so nice, but now I have to say this with the utmost conviction: NEVER EVER STAY AT ROYAL OAKS CABINS IN LOVE, VA! First and foremost, the food we bought at the country store was expired by about a month (tuna and cheese). Tim and I din't really care because we would have eaten anything, but yea totally expired. Also as you can see in the image above, there was a severed deer foot rotting a few feet away from where we set up our tents right by the volley ball court! Again we weren't going to say shit about it, but then the owner showed up...

From the first moment he and his wife arrived, it felt like they were boring holes in our skulls with their evil eyed stares. I overheard the son defend his decision to charge us a slight fee to set up tents there. The fellow guests certainly didn't mind, they were all fellow cyclists and were very interested in our trip. This must have been a family weekend for them or something, because the nice guy's sister showed up with her family, including her burly redneck lookin mothafucka husband.

A little context is needed to fully explain the severity of my outrage... Tim had developed pain in his knee the day after our crazy 80 mile push to Charlottesville. We should have taken it easy, but I guess all that riding did a number on his joint, and the two days of climbing after that certainly didn't help. When we went to bed on the night of the 23d we had talked about how if it didn't start feeling better we'd have to let it rest. There was no sense in blowing out his knee and ending the trip then and there. When we got up, Tim started investigating our options, including calling doctors and physical therapists in Lexington, VA, the closest town to Love, VA. We where pretty much in the country with nothing around for miles, and both of our cell phones didn't get reception. Tim tried to use the payphone at the cabins, but couldn't get it to connect. Thinking that all calls to the same area code are local calls (logical huh?), Tim asked the son to use the phone in the office. Nice guy son totally obliged, and Tim made a few calls. The plan was this: Tim felt good enough for the short 500 ft climb up the Parkway that would end our day with a downhill ride to Lexington. We set off, and rode about two miles, before Tim realized that this wasn't going to work, and it was best not to push his knee. We returned to the campsite, hoping to intercept a group of the bikers, who had arrived with their cars and bike racks, so that we could ask them to maybe give us a lift down to civilization. We started planning for a week long break to see if his knee would get better, and wanted to call the rental car company to ask if we could do a one way rental to Nashville (no good). By this time the parents and owners of the cabins showed up with their death stares making us feel really unwelcome. When Tim asked the bitch mother to use the phone she snapped at him, said, "My daughter told me you used the phone for 30 minutes(not true). We're trying to run a business." The exchange apparently ended with Tim saying, "I'm not trying to tell you how to run your business, I'm just asking for a little humanity."

Since there were no bikers around, and since the son told us he could give us a lift after fiveish, our only option was to sit and wait. We bought some lunch at the country store, and when I went in to use the microwave, I got bitched at by the dick father for Tim using the phone. Apparently Virginia is crazy in that calls in the same area code are not necessarily local, and according to him, Tim's calls cost the guy $20-$30 (like he was calling Russia or something)! We were beginning to feel that we were clearly not wanted there, but since we had no other option, we sat there with our helplessness feeling like having to depend on other people's compassion was the last thing we wanted to have happen on this trip.

About 20 minutes after buying our lunch, the dick father came over carrying his granddaughter in his arms, followed by his burly redneck lookin mothafucka son-in-law. Apparently he was ready for some conflict and wanted backup (who would argue with a man carrying an adorable toddler?). He told us, "That's it guys, you gotta go, you can't just sit here and loiter all day." Dejected we began gathering our things, it was clear there was no reasoning with this douche. I said, "Thanks for having a heart," which set the dude off, he got all up in my face with his finger pointing saying, "Don't get sarcastic with me, we're trying to run a business." How us buying food and paying for a spot of grass hurt his business, I don't know, but apparently treating your customers like shit is the way the guy likes to run his cabins. If it wasn't for the granddaughter, terrified by her grandfather's callous behavior, I would have exchanged a few cross words with him, but as it is, I'm left with the online community to vent my frustration. I'm certainly lodging a complaint to the better business bureau.

Buoyed by adrenaline, we set off on our climb, Tim feeling less pain than before. We were almost to the summit, when BOOM! Tim's trailer tire blew out! Maybe it was a sign from God that we shouldn't have been riding in the first place, but that was definitely the icing on a pretty big shit cake. Since Tim's tire was a top of the line Schwalbe, we never expected it to blow out the sidewall, so we didn't have a spare (note the difference between the tire and the inner tube, we had a spare tube, but no tire). We were left with no choice but to flag down a car.

Luckily the next truck to approach was a forrest service truck, and the guy called up a ranger who gave us a lift to Lexington, VA. Like my mother said that day when I called, "In life and especially on a journey like this, you will meet amazing, generous people, but you will also meet terrible, stupid people." That day we saw some superlative examples of those different kinds of people.


We barely made it into town in time to get a replacement tire, and spent the afternoon pumping it, with my tiny hand pump. We checked into a motel down the road (overpriced, but actually fairly nice), and planned for our hiatus. I will be back in Nashville probably around Sunday, and will stay through May 3d for my dad's 50th birthday (how I'll bike hungover, I don't know...) We're hoping for the best, that a week's rest will help Tim's knee, but are preparing for the worst, that it may be much longer before he feels better. One thing is for sure, despite all of these snags, we are determined to finish our trip, and will start again in Damascus, VA simply because it is close to Kingsport, TN and we wouldn't want anyone to have to drive 7 or 8 hours just to drop us off in Lexington.

Day Five - Get on the Scene, like a sex machine

We woke at our campsite to have breakfast with the ducks, and set off on the single hardest day of our entire trip. We began the climb to Afton, VA to see the house of June Curry, the cookie lady.
The cookie lady has been giving out free water to bikers since the early days of the Trans America route. Afton is a very small town, with very little accommodations available, and just so happens to be at the top of a massive hill. Since there is no place for bikers to stay in Afton, and not much but wilderness on the Blue Ridge Parkway, the cookie lady took it upon herself to provide housing, water, and now free meals to passing bikers.
All she asks is that bikers send her a postcard from their destination, and her house is full of them. She's a tough old lady, who detailed all her many falls of late, but nowadays her helper Debbie runs the bike house.

These were some of the nicest people we've met, and kept us entertained while Tim and I recharged on that one essential ingredient: positive mental attitude (PMA)
We left her house and began the long arduous climb up the Blue Ridge mountains. After the climb to Afton, it didn't seem all that hard.

We were just glad to be off HWY 250, hopefully for good.
Taking the cookie lady's advice, we took our time, and stopped often to enjoy the scenery.




There were helpful signs marking our progress up the mountain.


If you can't read that, the sign says 3119 ft. We climbed a total of about 2000 ft that day!
I can't decide, which is a better victory pose. This one...
Or this one...

Victory is ours! Fortuitously we accidentally dialed the number of Royal Oaks cabins, a luxury cabin resort in Love, VA, looking for the national forest service campground, and the guy on the phone was really nice. He told us there was no sense in us going down the huge hill 4 miles off our route to get to the campsite, he would totally let us camp on the grounds for $15, the exact rate we payed the night before. Believe it or not, there was wi-fi and the country store had beer! We made camp content with our luck... all that changed the next day...

Day Four - Don't trust the meteorologis

This was the sweet bedroom we stayed in the night before. Tim and I were going to paper-rock-scissors for the bed, but I almost weaseled my way into getting it all to myself:

While I was posting all of those entries he woke up, and since he let me borrow his shoe covers, which kept my feet nice and toasty dry on the rainy ride into Charlottesville, I let him have the bed. The couch was comfy enough, especially after I downed another Carly.
We decided to spend the day in downtown Charlottesville, kind of exploring the city, and then take a short day up to Afton, VA to stay with the cookie lady.
The downtown looked pretty cool, even though there was a lot of construction. They had a pedestrian mall, which I think every downtown area needs.
We decided to swing by a bike shop, Blue Bell Bike shop, in order to get some shoe covers, and rain pants just in case we get hit with the same shitty weather we had the preceding few days. The bike shop was generally worthless for a frugal cyclist, but they did have rain pants relatively cheap, and some shoe covers. We got lost trying to find the shop, and lo and behold, the forecast of a sunny day turned into cold drizzling. Just when we were unprepared for it.
I tried to keep a positive attitude, but really all I wanted to do is get the fuck out of Charlottesville.
Once out of the city and off of HWY 250, it was a glorious day.
We got our first glimpse of the mountains.

And rode on. Since we got so lost so often in downtown C-ville (that's what they call it) we didn't make it out until late, and decided to not push it to Afton and stayed at a nearby campsite.

Day Three- a silver lining

These are the storm clouds that drove us to a motel last night. We made it in around 3:00 and finished the miserable day off the way it was meant to be finished. After two days of riding and three beers in us, Tim and I passed out by 10:30 PM.
Since we had splurged on a hotel room, we decided to cook our dinner. Of course this is no hostel, so we just fired up our camp stove and made some very tasty burritos.
Our quaint little motel room in the morning.
So this place was already pretty ghetto looking from the outside, but after checking in the owner pointed to a table full of "goodys" medicine and said, "You take, my friend want me to give to all my customers." This was a delightful concoction of Acetaminophen, Aspirin, and Caffeine (insert e-sarcasm here). No thanks, dude. I don't take drugs (except the three ibuprofen i've been popping nightly).
The ride was absolutely beautiful. Clear skies, and very rural, low traffic roads. We passed through Bumpass, VA (I don't know how you pronounce it, but I prefer the comedic pronunciation myself). We also passed through Goochland, the space between spaces, but I didn't take a picture, it wouldn't be pretty... Goochland is also colloquially known as Grundle County.


If anyone knows what the fuck this thing is, please let me know. They were growing all over the evergreens by the side of the road.



Ah the pastoral landscapes.

I don't think we could have been happier on this ride. That is until tragedy befell us. We rode for 45 miles or so to Mineral, VA ("an early mining town") and made lunch in the yard of a library (yea we fired up the camp stove again) in between a middle school and high school. You can only imagine the looks we got. After lunch, at around 3PM we re-checked our maps, and realized that we miscalculated. Instead of being more than halfway to Charlottesville, we were about 50 miles away. Tim panicked, I prepared mentally for the upcoming death ride, and we set off. After about an hour we realized that the forecasted 30% chance of showers was now inevitable, so we pulled over to gear up and cover our bags. One might think that we were unlucky, considering it was more than likely we would have sunny skies for our long ride, but there was indeed a silver lining to all those gathering storm clouds. We stopped in someone's yard, and a very nice guy in a pickup chatted us up about our destination and the upcoming storm. He could probably tell how frazzled we were by the whole situation, and offered us a lift to a nearby gas station, about five miles off our route. Since we didn't know how bad the storm was going to be, or if we were even going to make to Charlottesvile, we took him up on that offer. While en route, he mentioned that the road we were on led straight into Charlottesville, and, unlike the mapped route, was only 23 miles to our destination. Even with all the hills and extra traffic (plus a wider shoulder than we were used too) it seemed like a better idea to cut our mileage in half. So we rode on.
The rain stopped eventually and this was what we left.
And this was probably one of the most welcoming sites I've ever seen. Storm clouds behind me, and ahead nothing but blue skies.


Tim didn't seem quite as optimistic about the whole thing, but was surely as determined, if not more so, to make it to our destination, and with good reason: Noelle, through her philanthropic work at greencorp became acquainted with people scattered all throughout the country, and one guy happened to be from Charlottesville. His parents frequently host greencorp volunteers and they let us stay in their lovely home. Jim and Anna were quite hospitable, and the accomodations are more than we can expect for a long time. The water pressure in the shower provided quite a pleasant massage on my aching shoulders. After an 80 mile ride (that's how much it turned out to be) through the foothills of Appalachia, we were ready for rest.

Tomorrow we tackle the mountains. Wish us luck!

-sf