Day 9: Mallard Duck Campground, VA to Troutville, VA (52 miles, 360 total)

Today was all about feeling sluggish. I think we are still recovering from our stint in the mountains yesturday. We had big plans to try to make it to Catawba today (another 20 miles down the road), but we just didn't have it in us.

We slept rather well at the Mallard Duck Campground, despite the barks of Bubba, the campground dog. Bubba didn't like me much, that's fine though, I'm not his biggest fan either.

We packed up as quickly as we could. We decided to skip a full-on breakfast and settle on a few Fig Newtons and a "real" breakfast 10 miles down the road in Lexington.

It was a bit chilly at 6:30 in the morning, so we donned our cold weather gear (full arm and leg warmers and our rain jackets). We said goodbye to some fellow cyclists we met the night before (James and Eric, on their way to Salt Lake City, and Burbank, CA), and we were on the road by 7:30.

The first five miles of the ride were extremely cold; the tips of our fingers first burned, then felt numb in the breeze. By the time we made it to Lexington the weather turned warm and we stopped for a nice hearty breakfast.

Lexington is a nice little town, Home to both the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and Washington and Lee University.

After breakfast we quickly made a wrong turn and ended up off the route. Correcting the problem was easy since the road we were on (Highway 11) intersects the TransAm route several times down the road. However, I have a feeling we were subjected to more hills than need be by getting off route.

Once back on the route, we headed towards Buchanan for groceries. A few hills stood in our way, but most tended to be the rolling type where you could charge down the backside of one gaining enough momentum to almost crest the next. Once in Buchanan, we bought some food for a meal for tonight and some ham, cheese, and bread for lunch.

Buchanan at was about mile 35 for us and although I felt fine rolling into town, we both seemed to hit a wall on the way out. It took a lot of effort, but we finally rolled into Troutville about 15 miles later. We had heard that cyclists can sleep in the city park for free, so we headed there to investigate.

We were flagged down by Cecil, the park manager. He was very friendly and gave us all the insturctions we needed. We rolled into the park and practically collapsed in exhaustion. Immediately, I started getting the allergic sniffles and eye burns.

In a nearby pavillion-area of the park about 50 people were busy celebrating something. After about 20 minutes, a nice woman named Carol came over and invited us to eat. It turns out they were having a graduation party for Carol's grandson who is headed to Randolf Macon College next fall to play football. We were treated to a huge spread of food including veggies, potato salad, baked beans, country ham, cheese, cake, soda, and something they called a "peetro" which was odd, but quite good. They described it as "redneck food", but I describe it as an open bag of Fritos with a scoop of chili, sour cream, cheese, and chopped tomatoes. They serve it with a spoon and you eat it right out of the bag. They told us they eat them at football games all the time.

After eating our fill and thanking them many times we returned to our camping area to set-up our tent. Tonight's camping is free as well, but there is one problem with that, no showers AGAIN!. Now, I am pretty sure I smell like roses, but Anne Katherine could really use a shower! Seriously though, the last time we showered was in Waynesboro and we are super ripe. Showers are a must tomorrow, so is a beer.

Ok, we are off to figure out what the plan is for tomorrow. Hopefully we can blast some miles and not feel like slugs.

Oh wait, quick story... Yesturday we had a few speedy downhills. At one point my cyclo-computer marked the my max speed at 40 mph. I was shocked and a bit proud of myself, so I mentioned it to A.K. and she checked her computer. Hers had peaked at 41 mph!

By the way, it looks like rain...

Jeff

P.S. Depending one when we come across a phone, so of these entries may get posted a bit late.