Days 6 - 8: C + Hill = Chill - Lexington to Catawba to Blacksburg

I woke up depressed on Sunday. Ate two breakfasts at the diner i ordered dinner from the night before (2 breakfasts = under $10, whatta bargain!) I felt like a ponce ordering hot tea - but i can't drink coffee. I stalled, ratting my cage and tinkering with the cycle computer (still down). Bike shop in Lexington was closed until Monday, and i didn't want to take an early day off at that ratty motel. It was still raining and i texted Natalie about a rash on my inner thigh. Was going to take a picture and send but thought otherwise.

Day 6 was going to be a nebulous day, cloudy in both sky and brain. It was too far to Christiansburg after the hellish climbs the previous day, so i just took off before it got too late and the hotel staff would charge me $10 for a late checkout. After about 20 miles, I took a break at a turnoff in the route and munched a cliff bar. A cyclist without much gear approached me. Jim, a guy who must be in his late sixties is also on the TransAmerica but his lovely wife, Sherry, is carrying his gear in their car with Sandy the dog and pottering around the towns, driving the route and catching up with Jim at various points during the day. Jim is raising money for Habitat for Humanity, an organization he's involved with through his church. He's doing most of the same route as me and traveling a similar number of daily miles. So i figure i'll run into him along the way even though the lucky devil doesn't have to carry a big load - and gets to see his wife and dog every morning and night. Maybe Donny and Dinah will hit the road...? Jim was going to camp that night in Catawba behind a store that allows cyclists to camp there for free. "Do you think they have a shower?" I ventured. Uh, no. It's free camping behind a store, what would your guess be?

The day was about 66 miles according to the map when i pulled into the Catawba Valley General Store's parking lot. Jim was there as were four other cyclists and an odd, slightly hills-have-eyes type who was hiking the Appalachian Trail (which our bike route crosses several times).

I confess! I have never camped before where i was setting up shop solo. When i have camped with Nina, she's the alpha and i'm her faithful assistant. The sun was low and it was getting cold. I decided to pitch my tent near a fence, not too close to anyone else but not so far away so i'd be on a slope, the blood flooding my head or feet all night. I was intent on setting up without looking at the instructions; i had practiced in the back yard and Donny and I had dived in for a moment in this "2-man" tent. (Small for one). It took several minutes of nonchalant la-la-la i-know-what-i'm-doing before i peeped at the paper just to make sure i was doing it correctly. i kind of wasn't and had to re-route the poles, laughing at my city-boy incompetence. Eventually my temporary nest was built and i dove in to clean my dark areas with tea-tree oiled wipes.

Sherry, Jim's wife, approached me to say hello, and we chatted for a while. Really lovely woman, retired special ed teacher, lives in northeast Georgia which, she says, looks a lot like where we are right now. One thing i've been struggling with a bit came up with Sherry. It's that tension i might have mentioned earlier between stopping to smell the roses and the need to get to the end result. Sherry told me how she visited with The Cookie Lady, an elderly woman named June who lives in Afton and who has been aiding cyclists with cookies, water and a place to crash for over 30 years. I had stopped by the Cookie Lady's place as i came up the Afton hill the day before. I knocked lightly and said hello? but no one answered and i moved on. Sherry caught me up with the Cookie Lady, including how she earns $300 monthly in social security but her insurance is $500 so when she was sick in the hospital last year (a stroke, she's 88, mind you) and couldn't leave leave the hospital cuz she didn't have enough to cover home care, cyclist groups raised the money for her, she came home, recovered from the stroke, and welcomes cyclists into her home every day. Because I'm so raw, i blubbered a little bit, really moved by the story (and regretful that i didn't get to meet her myself). I really wish i had knocked louder. But at the same time, if i had stopped, i would have stayed too long and would have been caught in the thunderstorm the night before, maybe stranded. So there's something to be said for pushing through. Get the tension i'm talking about?

All the cyclists i've met so far doing this trip are all taking longer to do it, are camping more that hotelling it, and all seem, you know, relaxed. Nothing like relaxed people to highlight one's own sense of being. Wound. Pretty. Tight. As i was climbing a random hill at some point during the day, in a low moment of self-doubt, i passed a house with C. Hill on the mailbox. Get it?

The sunset was beautiful and i was feeling really outdoorsy and confident shoving the other half of a subway sandwich i'd started on earlier. I shot some film, mini-interviewed myself inside my tent. Read. And fell fast asleep. For 3 hours. The rest of the night I couldn't sleep. What's ironic is that i wasn't uncomfortable; it wasn't too windy or anything. I just couldn't sleep.

Did i forget to mention that it went down to 35 degrees that night? That just doesn't happen where i live.

In the morning, i went into the store we were camping behind and got some hot water for my PG Tip sachet (and milk! - the lady inside said it was her special stash and she gulped a bit out of the bottle to make sure it was still good before she handed it over free of charge. We outdoorsy camping cyclist types aren't picky, you see). A dollar-twenty bought me an egg on a biscuit with American cheese (i've had American cheese now more times in the last week than i have had in my entire adult life), and the lady offered to put lettuce and tomato on it which i gratefully accepted. I think Donny will be pleased if i continue to eat American cheese when i get home.

Everybody moved slowly yesterday morning. I think we were all waiting for it to get a little bit warmer. I felt connected to the people i met: Jim and Sherry and Sandy the Dog, Leigh (who tried to help me fix my bike computer) and Margaret from Alaska, Mike and his friend from Tampa. And me.

I took off for Blacksburg, trying to be as clean in the crotch area as possible (how do these people do it without showering? i seriously don't understand it. it's not about being hyper-hygienic. but how can you sweat for 8 hours on a bike and not need to wash your crotch in order to prevent the sensitive areas from breaking out/down. I really must get chummy enough with someone to ask. Cuz it ain't pretty down there.

I was going for a short day, about 25 miles, and crash in a hotel in Blacksburg after taking Whitey to urgent care for the computer and a couple of issues. It was relatively easy in the cool air until i went off-route to Blacksburg which was a long 3-mile climb. 468 miles so far.

Blacksburg is where Virginia Tech is. Pete, a friend from high school, went here, so i felt a minor connection to the place. If you love sports bars, this is the place to be. I do not love sports bars. I've been hiding out at the Holiday Inn since yesterday, washing all my stinky clothes, visiting the health food store (spinach!!), nursing various wounds and banishing the chill from my bones, catching up on sleep. The Bike Barn is where i took Whitey. Jim (another Jim) helped heal the wounds and gave me some tips as well, something which my own neighborhood bike mechanic will not do without heaving ponderous sighs, as i mentioned earlier.

Onward tomorrow...