June 19, 2008 at 12:01 pm (North Carolina, Virginia)
Tags: bookstore, communication, cuckoo's nest, farmers' market, greyhound
This post was supposed to be published several days ago. Oops!
In Roanoke I stayed with a Unitarian Universalist minister named Audette and her husband and daughters and cats and dogs. Roanoke has a perpetual farmers’ market, where I ate a whole bunch of fruit, and a bookstore whose owner is absolutely anal about customers even opening books before buying them. She helpfully informed me that the book was like a movie and the back of the book was “like the movie trailer” and that was how I should decide whether or not to make the purchase. I’d have sassed her in response, except I intended to buy her copy of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and money speaks louder than sass. Read the rest of this entry »
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June 12, 2008 at 6:46 pm (Virginia)
Tags: blue ridge, bus, camping, panic
Well, after my brief panic attack yesterday I got back on my bike (this is a great solution to any momentary sense of existential ) and biked up the Blue Ridge. It is possibly one of the most physically demanding things I have ever done - over an hour of steep climbing without any level or downhill sections – but I felt so elated at the top that I decided, rather than descending the other side, to continue along the Parkway. Some other bikers told me it was about ten miles to a campground. I wasn’t so sure, but they reassured me that in the worst case scenario I could just descend the ridge, so I went along my way. Read the rest of this entry »
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June 11, 2008 at 4:24 pm (Virginia)
Tags: blue ridge, solstice
Now that I’m actually looking at the timing of this thing, particularly with respect to distances between campsites, the Blue Ridge seems like a really bad idea if I want to get to Athens by the solstice. I think I’ll follow the I-81 instead (it looks like there are bike-friendly roads running alongside it all the way along), or something like that. That’ll still give me the benefit of the beautiful scenery without the difficulty of the Blue Ridge’s terrain and (from what I’ve heard) the hazards of biking on the narrow Parkway. Even so I might need to take a bus somewhere along the way.
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June 11, 2008 at 2:52 pm (Virginia)
Tags: blue ridge, heat, internet, nutrition
Rural Virginia is a lot like rural New York – lush, hilly and absolutely gorgeous. In the slightly more populated areas, however, things start to get a bit depressing: vast parking lots enclosing monolithic megachain stores, between which highways without sidewalks or shoulders carve the land. The sight of the vast Blue Ridge against the vaster sky has kept my spirits up, though, and now I’m about to get onto the Parkway. To be honest I’m not looking forward to riding the Ridge, but I’ll probably have a great time once I’m up there – and if I don’t, then I’ll just ride down the mountain and continue alongside it.
With the heat and with the exertion of biking 50+ miles a day, nutrition and hydration are becoming a bit of an issue. I’m guzzling milk and juice and Gatorade all day, which keeps me well-lubricated, but also makes me feel bloated and icky and not so inclined to eat. I’ve been able to get enough food into myself that this has not yet become an issue, but I’m just not sure I’m replacing calories as fast as I can burn them. No matter – I’ll be sure to take a nice long recuperative rest once I get to Georgia.
This does mean that I’ll only have internet access once every few days, so if I’m not updating my blog or responding to e-mails, no one need get worried. With any luck I’ll be in Athens, GA no later than the 21st. After that, maybe you could start getting concerned.
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