My Cross-Country Bike Tour

I am 13 miles away from Yorktown and I’m currently resting in a hotel in historical Williamsburg that Joanne Hansinger of The Arc of the United States has arranged for me. I’m set to travel the final few miles tomorrow with some other cyclists from a local cycling club who will be joining me.

Section 12 went by more quickly than most of my other maps. From Christiansburg I traveled to Lexington, where the owner of the Country Inn & Suites gave me a room for the night. I traveled from Lexington to Greenwood the next day and crossed over the Blue Ridge Parkway. My entrance onto the Parkway at Vesuvius consisted of a four mile climb that I would have to credit as being the steepest I’ve encountered on my trip. I spent my last night outdoors at a campground in Greenwood, where I met two cyclists from the Netherlands who were just starting out on the TransAm from Yorktown. The weather in the area has been pleasantly cool and I was shocked to hear that it had been over 100 degrees in Yorktown when they arrived a week ago. As they, in turn, questioned me about the roads that lay before them, I was reminded of my conversation with Philip, the British cyclist who I had encountered so long ago in eastern Oregon.

After Greenwood, I rode to Kents Store, a small town some 50 miles away from Richmond. While riding through the area, I met Kent and Susan, who were spending time with their grandkids outside of their house. I had originally stopped to ask for directions to the town’s only store (it was unmarked on my map). A couple of towns that I had passed previously had stores that allowed cyclists to camp in the back, so I was hoping that I’d be able to negotiate a similar arrangement here. Kent pointed me in the right direction and I headed off, but no more than a few minutes later, he and his grandkids pulled up alongside me in a minivan and generously offered to let me stay the night at their house. Kent and Susan cooked me dinner while I showered and we chatted a bit afterwards over food before heading off to bed. Susan prepared breakfast for us all in the morning before we parted ways. I had an excellent night’s sleep and again I felt comforted to have been in the midst of such hospitable people when I was so far from home.

I spent yesterday night in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Mechanicsville, a small community right outside of Richmond. There were no campgrounds to be seen when I arrived in town and some sort of convention going on had the lodging booked solid. Mike, the manager of the aforementioned Wal-Mart, would not let me sleep inside of the store as I had first hoped when I walked in looking for a place to stay, but he offered to let me rest in his car for the night instead. I gladly accepted and headed out to his car after feasting on a quick yogurt and macaroni salad dinner. Mike’s car was surprisingly comfortable and I fell asleep quickly.

I had a short day today from Mechanicsville to Williamsburg. I passed through a few Civil War battlefields around Richmond early in the day before pressing on to the Colonial Parkway at Jamestown. From Jamestown onward, the land becomes very swampy; why anyone would choose to establish a colony here is beyond me. There were informational signs along the way and I stopped to read many of them: throughout my entire trip, I had passed through many areas of historical significance that I had studied in school but did not particularly care for until now. Of course, it’s much more meaningful to go visit a place than to simply read about it in a textbook.

13 more miles. I can’t believe it’s almost over.