Date: 2007-04-07
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

I guess it's time for the weekly update that I promised for this approach trail to the AT. :-))I left my RV in the north Georgia mountains a few days before the start date of April 1st and headed to Carleen's home in Garner, NC. It's always so nice to see Carleen, but when I go over there, I have to see Chief too.I spent two nice days over there. Carleen prepared a very nice meal the first night, then Chief and I stayed up fairly late and he filled me in on his extensive knowledge of bicycling.We all went out for fried chicken the second night. :-))I thanked them and headed up to the airport in Richmond, Va to meet up with Mrs Gorp. I only had to wait about an hour before she showed up, then after turning in her rental car, we headed over to the Bump's....Goosebump The Snow Princess, Rainbow Slick, Baby Bump and Little Jack Spencer's home near Powhatan, Va.They met us with open arms and a complete 20 pound turkey dinner. Everyone knows that we have to pedal all these extra pounds up the hills coming up in a few days. :-))It was nice to see Underpants, another '03 sobo who came up to see us off.That was another delicious dinner. We all stayed up talking for quite a while about the times we had walked together, and about the upcoming adventure.The plan was to load the bikes in the back of the truck in the morning and head over to Yorktown, Va. I ended up sleeping really well and it was morning before I knew it.We started getting everything loaded up and realized it was going to be a job getting everyone in. The bikes and Rainbow Slick went in the back of the truck. Mrs Gorp, Goosebump The Snow Princess and Little Jack Spencer were in the back seat and Underpants sat in the front and I drove.We ended up leaving on time and only had to make one potty stop on the way to Yorktown. (I had a whole pot of Starbuck's before I left) ;-))We stopped at the Visitor's Center at Yorktown and Poppie pulled in next to us. He had come over to see us off and bring us our first trail magic...3 Snicker's apiece.We got our panniers on the bikes in front of the Victory Monument and then took a bunch of pictures of the start of the Trans Am Bicycle Trail that heads out to the coast of Oregon.I had spotted a nice little breakfast place on the way in this morning and told everyone that we would be stopping for our first break in .2 miles to have breakfast. They all drove and Mrs Gorp and I logged .2 miles before parking our bikes in front of the first of what I hope will be many restaurants on the way out west and back to Maine. Ha!!!I had planned on buying breakfast for everyone, but Poppie wouldn't hear of it and he made sure he got the check.Poppie....thanks for the first AND the second trail magic of this trip!!!Mrs Gorp and I finally got rolling again about 11am....not an early start, but a start. :-))The terrain was mostly flat and easy riding. We rode down Colonial Pkwy and into Williamsburg where the streets were full of people walking around and horse drawn carriages. We kept on riding for a B&B we had called earlier.I had just crossed a grated bridge over the Chickahominy River and a SUV had pulled over and had the back end opened up. He flagged me down as I got close. It was Fannypack. He had heard we would be in the area and brought some sodas, cookies and bananas. We stood there and talked for a while, then decided we better get moving again. Thanks Fannypack!!We headed through Charles City which was one old time country store and nothing else. Nearing the end of the day, we came up to the B&B and they had room for us. The owners offered to take us to a nearby restaurant so we could eat dinner, but both of us were still stuffed from all that we had eaten in the last few days.We did have a nice breakfast the next morning and we were off by 8:30 for another nice day of riding. We went through a busy area in Mechanicsville where I learned my first "real life" lesson about bicycling...take up the whole turn lane when you are making a right hand turn on a bike. I was off to the right side of the lane and a landscape truck pulling a trailer tried getting around me into the turn and he ran me into some construction barrels. It was either the barrels or under the wheels of the trailer and I didn't want to scratch my brand new bike. :-))We headed on to Ashland and I had talked to Goosebump The Snow Princess earlier in the day and they wanted us to spend the next two nights at their home since we were so close.Rainbow Slick dropped us off in the morning and we got started rolling for our third day. The terrain changed from the flat plantations and battle fields of the first two days to rolling horse country...beautiful rolling horse country. This bicycle thing really gets you into the backroads where you would never see by car and it's much nicer country than you see along the main roads of America.We stopped in Bumpass, Va and had a snack. I had to stop in Bumpass. :-))We got into the Lake Anna area next and Mrs Gorp decided she could live there because it was so beautiful.We stopped in Mineral, Va next. We found a little barbecue place and went in to get a soda and sit down for a while. I started seeing the plates come by for other people and really wanted to order lunch there, but we were taking the Bump's out to Outback later that night and didn't want to eat yet. If I ever get back to Mineral, I will eat there because that barbecue looked great. :-))We rolled on to a little place called Tabscott where the only thing there was a church and a closed down corner store. We waited in the shade of the store for Rainbow Slick to pick us up. I knew it had been hot, but when Rainbow Slick got there, it was 85 degrees and he said it had gotten up to 88 degrees earlier.We picked up Goosebump The Snow Princess and we all went out for dinner, then went back for our last night with the Bump's. :-((Thanks to Goosebump The Snow Princess, Rainbow Slick, Baby Bump and Little Jack Spencer for all your help!!A cold front was working it's way through the area for the next day from Tabscott to Charlottesville. It was another very nice ride through lots more history and beautiful countryside. We stayed in Charlottesville and went from being so hot the day before to being cold today.The real hills of the Appalachians started the next day and it was a long steep ride up to Afton and Rockfish Gap. We stopped at the Visitor's Center and decided to try and make arrangements to spend the night indoors. We were going to camp along the Blue Ridge Pkwy, but it was going to be about 20 degrees with high winds. I called Lois at Dutch Haus B&B and she said she would pick us up at 5pm.We got to Reed's Gap and waited for about 10 minutes before Earl picked us up and took us back to the B&B. It was great to see Lois again and nice to be back at Dutch Haus.She made us chili in bread bowls for dinner which was a nice way to warm up.We had a good breakfast in the morning and Earl's dad dropped us back at Reed's Gap...frosty, cold Reed's Gap. :-))The Blue Ridge Pkwy is not flat!! We had some long climbs on that before we got to the very steep, switchbacked down at Rt 56 which took us down to Vesuvius at a high rate of speed. My fingers were numb when I reached the bottom where I waited on Mrs Gorp who took the downhill a bit slower.We made it into Lexington, Va for the night. It was nice to get in out of the cold.The cold itself isn't so bad, but the high winds make sure you feel it. The winds have been gusting to 40mph and directly at us on the bikes. Sometimes those winds hit you and it will slow you down to a stand still. Most of the time you can pump the pedals hard and go about 4 mph on the bikes. Sometimes the winds let up and you get a good speed going again, but the winds come right back.Today was another cold day with high winds blowing straight at us and snow flurries most of the day. It was another day of beautiful country riding though and I still enjoyed it even with the cold temps.We stopped at a gas station near Natural Bridge and went inside long enough to thaw our feet out. We stopped in Buchanan at a little place and had hot drinks and chicken noodle soup to warm us up.We headed on to Daleville and I got a room at my favorite motel along the AT...the Comfort Inn. They gave me a hiker rate since this is actually the approach trail to the AT. :-))Hokey Pokey came by the motel at 4pm. It's always great to see a good Trail friend. He drove us to The Homeplace in Catawba for dinner. We will ride right in front of The Homeplace tomorrow, but it's Easter and it will be packed. Hokey Pokey made it easy for us by taking us tonight.Hokey Pokey talked to the waitress and made sure he got the check. What he didn't realise was that I had already talked to the waitress and made sure he got the check. Ha!! Just kidding Hokey Pokey. :-)) Thanks loads for that dinner and thanks for the tour afterwards of the area you grew up in.That is a wrap of week number one on the Trans Am Trail. We are now experienced long distance bicyclers. Well, maybe I'm not all that experienced because all I do is ride along and follow Mrs Gorp. I've got the easy part of this. She has the GPS and is constantly telling me where to go. ;-))15,068 feet of elevation gain. (I'm not counting the hills we go down because I figure those as "free" miles because they are easy)324.5 miles totalAverage; 46.35 miles per day this week