Me hungy

I took pictures of some people to boost their self-esteem/ practice my skillins. Anne later dropped her chain on a STEEP uphill, failed to clip out, and fell right in the middle of a curvy 2 lane road. Twas kinda scary. Luckily, there was no traffic. Had their been, it could have been ugly.

Prettyful sunrise before hitting Christiansburg. I got up early to sew a ripped pannier and read a copy of Robinson Crusoe I picked up used in Ashland. The book has been killing me lately- I fall to sleep every time I open it.

We stayed in yet another backyard, cooked some ridiculous burritos, and ate pancakes in the morning. We later melted in the heat on the hills, and decided that it's defintely a bad idea to do serious cooking in the morning. We gotta get out earlier. Luckily the heat has subsided (87 high today!) and we can ride through the heat of the day without suffering.

I gotsum funny pics, but they're currently captive on me camera since this library has some blocky funny business that won't let me upload pics using the comp. I promise I'll show em to you laters.

500 miles!!!??!

We broke 500 miles today. It's day 10 of le ride. We've been picking things up lately. 60 miles a day in the mountains. It's really not bad when we take it easy. I think I could do 80 or 100 if I was on my own. I'm kinda planning things out for the ride from CO to SanFran.

Looking at the elevation profiles for the Western Express route between Pueblo CO and San Fran, it's kinda nuts. I think it peaked at 10,000 feet or something, and one of the last decents drops 6,000 feet, straight down. Nuts. Other highlights include a town named Stoner, sub-40 degree nights, 80 miles between any sort of civilization (which means no water), and a lot of uncertainty.

Yesterday, as I mentioned, the pancakes held us up a bit. We were cooking pancakes for 5 hungry guys using 2 little campstoves, so it took way too long. I stayed back with Anne and we actually had a pretty pleasant ride despite the heat and the fact that I ran out of water a couple miles too soon. (I dumped 2 liters of water all over the pavement trying to fill my water bottle.) However, towards the end, the heat was really getting just ridiculous.

We reached the heart of the town: a gas station and convenience store. It turned out to be the coolest convenience store ever. Really friendly ladies running the place, one of em made me a reuben for less than 3 bucks. Loaded up on nutrients with some V8 (everybody shortly copied me, jerks). And we went into the backroom and sat at a little random table in the kitchen/pantry/yard supply/novelty-t-shirt-storeroom combo.

Then I dropped $1.75 plus tax on a liter of Moose Tracks ice cream. My life would never be the same. I spent the next 15 minutes in pure bliss, using a spoon I found in the sink, I savored the most refreshing, most coolest, MOST BESTEST ICE CREAM TO EVER MAKE ITS WAY INTO A 3X4X5 INCH BOX IN THE BOTTOM OF A CONVENIECE STORE FREEZER BIN. I could write all day about how awesome those 640 calories of sugar-free artificial goodness were, and I still couldn't articulate it properly. Just imagine the best food experience you've ever had, and multiply it times a bajillion. I'll post a picture when I get a chance.


The past couple days riding have been a bit different. Since we're out of the really big elevation change, we've been dealing with about 600 feet of elevation change. But it's wierd how it hits us. It's super steep up and down, over and over again. It feels rare to find a nice slow climb where you can really get moving. It's ride-fast-as-hell-down, then grind-slow-and-painful up.

I've been taking it easy, looking around at the scenery. It's ridiculously beautiful when you just stop and look. (Again, pictures later) We've also seen a very confused groundhog, a vulture, tons of roadkill, some deer, and a couple foxes.

Today we passed up a family on a bike. One bike. Dad on the front, a 7 and 10 year old in the middle, and mom on the back. I think they're going cross country. We said hey before they turned into a hotel parking lot. Softies.

Last night I took a shower with a hose. The air was kinda cold, and the water was really cold, and everybody just looked at me and called me insane. But I didn't sleep sticky for the first time in a while, and it was completely worth it.

Ah yais, one other thing of note. The mountains here are strikingly different from those in North Carolina. Way more farmland. It's pretty much all farmland, except for the super steep stuff. Mostly grazing land. It struck me as strange since I'm used to seeing nothing but trees in NC. Or maybe it's because I'm riding different roads? I dunno.

To the people who commented on my previous post that I was supposed to get back to, promise I'll get back to you soon. Everybody just ran down the road in search of food and shelter. I gotta go find em.

Steven

Wytheville, 06-11-08