Admit it, you missed me. And the title sucked you right in!
Virginia this time. I'm better at the long climbs, these were constant and frequently pretty steep. But great scenery. Saw a few civil war sites, but we didnt get to any battlefields. Debbie, gives me an excuse to come back!
We protect ourselves as we ride, pointing out road hazards, street furniture, loose dogs and etc I've seen dogs, cattle, squirrels, chipmunks, dive bombing birds, turtles, deer, wooly boolies, but that was the first time I heard "watch out for the duck"! As a mallard WALKED across the road! Too funny!
We camped but three in our party brought campers. First site was great as we had power and water! Still had shower truck and portajohns but nearly luxury! The first day was so hot in tent I could barely pull the Lycra up, no way sunscreen would stay on! We were looking at the first three days of rain - ended up raining Friday night after we were in our tents and that was it! And thankfully it started cooling off so by 11 the tent was tolerable
And then we moved. Hm. It was an huge abandoned site with a huge fence around it. Overgrown, kind of looked like we were in a zombie apocalypse movie site. NOT HAPPY! And the first site for campers was just a small cramped parking lot. Fortunately the map had shown another camper site, the 2 guys ran over to scope it out, decided we could maneuver in, and off we went. It ended up being a perfect site and all 24 in our group had ample grass to set up tents and our "social area"!
We found out we were to be the last occupants. We had passed all the signs - Wards - and realized we were in an old, abandoned mental institute. Surely with this group we were going to be the last occupants because we were going to get locked in! It was going to be pitch perfect desk and scary and night - ghosts and other stories came up!
And it was dark! Of course I had to get up and go to the porta john at about 1 am. First - there was this bird wickedly signing away in a tree - at 1 am! (Ended up deciding it was a mockingbird). So I'm blind as a bat, using my flashlight but can't see much. There were random lights off and on, kind of earie I must say. And then . . . I saw a ghost. Off to my right about 15 feet away a cloudy white form moved off and behind me.
In retrospect of course it was a person in a white T-shirt but I'm blind and it was a scary site and I had a great camp story to tell!
Just falling asleep - suddenly it sounds like I'm about to be sucked up into a vortex. It was incredible, loud, and disorienting. And then it faded into the rhythmic clack clack clack of a passing train. When we had light we found out we camped about 40 feet from a railroad track!! There were 2 trains that night! A perfect site - except for the bird screaming all night, the utter darkness, the ghosts, and the train within spitting distance!
We were close to the Natural Arch and a big cave so we slipped over to take a look. It was beautiful and I suppose we all needed to add a hike in!
At the end of the three days the scary, yucky site actually worked perfectly and they didn't lock us in!
A great week of cycling in a really beautiful but hilly area!
Until next time!
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