4,195 Miles And The Ice Cream Looses

Virgina Creeper Trail, Monticello, Very Nice Swamp, Victory Monument Yorktown, THE END




Interesting that only one person and I think that was me voted for a seven week finish and it's been exactly 49 days with 46 riding and 3 rest.

I left Damascus VA last Friday taking the VA Creeper Trail which is a Rails to Trails route, pretty straight forward an old rail bed where they remove the tracks and put down crushed gravel should have been okay for a road bike. At the end of the trail I need to hop on the Appalachian Trail for only about a quarter mile. Very long story short the AT is not suitable for a road bike while going downhill the trailer jack knifed crushing my derailer and ripping out the cable from my rear shifter. From this point on I was left with a single speed of course I could change gears by breaking the chain but this gets tedious. For the next two days I was still in pretty good hills so road all the time in a very low gear for the last two days I've been in my biggest gear, not perfect but so close to the end of this nothing really bothered me much. The weather the last four days has been excellent low humidity and high 80's....perfect. Friday I rode from Damascus to Christianburg via the Creeper Trail and Thomas Jefferson forest. Closer to Christianburg I started seeing really nice colonial style homes. Saturday was Christianburg to Lexington which has the National War College and home of Stonewall Jackson. From this point I was immersed in Revolutionary and Civil War Virginia. Sunday was a 4,000 foot steep climb over 2 miles onto the Blue Ridge Parkway which rolls along through several states but I only took it for about 40 miles, very scenic overlooks. I finished Sunday in Charlotesville home of the University of Virginia. Monday morning up early and off to Monticello home of Thomas Jefferson. $15 admission fee, I gave a $20 and got a dollar bill and two freshly minted two dollar bills change. I thanked the lady for not giving me 100 nickels and asked why John Adams wasn't on the two dollar bill...she was not amused. Next was Ash Lawn home of James Monroe and finally Scotch Lawn home of Patrick Henry. Remainder of Monday was filled with really nice horse farms and very expensive well maintained colonial homes I finished Monday in Ashland. I've been blowing by presidents homes all day.....seems like half of them are from VA and I seem to loose my attention span for it pretty quickly although I will stop at Mount Vernon Thursday prior to a pit stop in DC. Today was Ashland to Yorktown stopping at Jamestown for several hours. Jamestown was the first English settlement in the Americas and much to see there....a few years back they celebrated the 400 year anniversary so much is very new and up to date great interpretive tours and really knowledgeable guides. Early this afternoon I made it to Yorktown and spent a few hours touring around the old battlefields and such prior to going swimming. Tomorrow off to Williamsburg. Thursday I'll rent a car and start heading north. Looking forward to seeing some of you over the next several days. At some point I'll post some sort of conclusion to this excursion but not just yet.