Day One, Part Two

By the grace of a pastor named Marco, we are sleeping in a house tonight, with beds and a shower. For those of you playing along at home, that means I have now taken a shower for every day I've biked. I hope someone just lost a bet.

The pictures above are of my bike, loaded with more stuff than I need, of Iris, Jon, and me with our tires in the ocean at the start of the trip, and of the sun setting in Jamestown right before we met Marco.

We ended up riding only about 25 miles today, with plans to go a lot further tomorrow. We want to cross Virginia in about 8 days, and our goal for tomorrow is to reach Ashland, where Iris knows someone we could stay with. That's about 60 miles from where we are right now. We're trying to plan only one or two days in advance.

Anyway, we're sleeping in a studio apartment that Marco and his wife have on the back of their house. I had read that people along the route were incredibly friendly and welcoming, but I'm still so surprised. He and his wife drive right up to us as we rode and offered to let us stay. Right now, Iris and I are typing, Jon is singing loudly in the shower, and our stuff is spread out all over the the floor. We need to repack and go to bed.

If internet access continues to be readily available, I will continue to regale you with thrilling tales from life on the road.

Day One

Left Alexandria at 2:00 PM on Thursday. My room is still a mess - best laid plans, etc. I just shut the door dramatically.

Last night Iris, Jon and I stayed in a house on Virginia Beach. A woman named Elsa lets TransAm cyclists stay in the house for free, so I got to sleep in a bed for one final night. Jon rolled in around 2AM after missing his flight, but still managed to set the timer on the coffee maker, which was cause for celebration this morning.

Our plan was to ride the 10 miles to Williamsburg, pick up some supplies that we forgot, and proceed to Jamestown. We're not sure where we're staying yet, but we have a tent and an instinct for survival. I'm not worried. We commemorated the start of the trip by dipping our back tires into the ocean, and then set off down the parkway. The 10 miles were mostly flat, and hauling 60+ lbs of gear was not as hard as I thought, although I'm going pretty slowly.

Right now we are sitting in a coffee shop near William and Mary. Iris brought an entire spindle of CDs with her, and is in the process of copying them onto her computer. We are mocking her, because they do not pack easily, but she insists that we will be thankful for the Buena Vista Social Club soundtrack later on down the road. Speaking of music, I put my ipod on shuffle at the start of the ride. There are about 250 songs on the ipod, and the first to come on was "Colt45" by Afroman. I do not want to consider the connotations.

I'll get better at blogging. Pictures to come.