Day 36. An easy day in VA. Wytheville, VA

After 2 hard days in a row our legs have lost their spring and become a bit dead, so we slept in till 7, dallied over a very nice breakfast buffet at the Old Mill Inn where we stayed and hit the road at 9:15 with an arrival into Wytheville, VA at 5.  

 Damascus Main Street on our way out of town. A very interesting little town if you're into the hiker/biker long haul traveler scene like I am with hostels and hiking/biking shops everywhere. Angela and I read the book "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson before we were even married and it inspired us to dream for many years about a 6 month through hike on the Appalachian Trail. That adventure is probably passed us by at this point in our lives but we both still have a romantic spot in our hearts for it and being in Damaacus for the first time rekindled it for me. 

 The Virginia Creeper trail is a 38 mile rail to trail that runs through Damascus and parallels about the first 11 miles of our route east on the TransAm. Apparently the "Creeper" was a special train that could take the grade up to the east a few thousand feet up. Now, especially today on Memorial Day weekend, shuttle vans were making hundreds of trips taking people and rental bikes up the grade all day so people could coast 18 miles back down to Damascus. Those lazy bastards!!

 

We had to climb about 1,800 feet to get out of Damacus before we could settle into mostly gently rolling hills into Wytheville. We knew the grade would be fairly nice as long as we followed these beautiful mountain streams. 

 Azelas, some still with blooms, adorned the steams and forests the first 25 miles of our ride. Even though we were climbing again, it was a nice morning ride. 

 

I wanted to make a joke here about how the sheep called out John's name when we passed but that would have been childish!!

 The church in Sugar Grove was having a yard sale and offered food as well. The nice lady in the middle here, Peggy, took care of our needs in the somewhat chaotically slow food tent. Her 24 year old grandson, Dillon, is currently hiking the Pacific Coast Trail (Mexico to Canada) and has also through hiked the Appalachian Trail. She knows how many people have helped Dillon out when he needed it or been kind to him, so besides being a very gracious lady, I think she was passing it on to us. 

 And this was our lunch. It wasn't fancy but relaxing from the sun in the shade of a tree and eating it was a pleasant break. About 21 more miles to go to finish the day. We're still taking our time, trying to take it easy and bring out tired legs and bodies back to life. 

Finally into Wytheville we find "deluxe" accommodations at the Travel Lite Motel, just like us, traveling light. And only $50 a night, score once again!!

 

Just as we finished our check-in this gentleman road up on his touring bike with a slightly lost or bewildered look about him. We briefly greated each other and agreed to have dinner together at 7 at the "Log Cabin 1776" restaurant across the street. This picture from dinner shows Edgar in better mental shape.  He's from the Philippines and is on his first bike tour ever across the country on the TransAm. Starting in Yorktown about 22 days ago he's making slow progress due to his lack of cycling experience and conditioning. If you do the math he's averaging over all of his days about 20 miles per day. He's getting stronger but still probably not comfortable going too much further than that. He's already made two shipments of gear back to the Philippines and admitted he's probably still carrying too much weight. He had some amazing stories about his false starts and challenges but in all cases he's gotten great help from strangers along the way, persevered and still is planning on finishing by September. He was a great dinner guest and was very impressed with the bounty and character of our country and people.  BTW John felt an immediate connection with Edgar because they were both riding Rivendale bikes and fanatics about them. 👍