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Adam and I both woke up a few times and went back to sleep. We finally started getting up around 8:45. We grabbed our things and got out of the motel room at check-out time (11 AM). As the trash can indicates, we might have over done it a little, staying right next to a Wal-Mart.

We carried out our bikes empty, then loaded everything on to them in the parking lot before starting back into town. We made it to the Post Office and began packaging our less needed things. As time goes on, you find that the weight up the hills doesn’t pay for the convenience of some items. Adam shipped a package back home to Omaha, and I sent one to Jeffersonville. Around 1 PM, we left the Post Office on our way out of town.
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I left the Tye River Gap Campground at a little past 11 AM. It took me quite a while to get down to Vesuvius. I had only filled two water bottles, because I figured that I wouldn’t need that much water on the way down. I was wrong about that. With my braking on a 20″ wheel, my rims got HOT. I used the rear as a drag brake until it started fading and then stopped with the front. A couple times, when I stopped and squirted water on the rear, I made a decent amount of steam. It would be these downhills that eventually trashed my original tires. More about that later.
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The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense. –Thomas Arnold Bennett

I woke up at 6 AM, reset my alarm, and went back to sleep. Then I woke up a 7 AMand I felt a little better about it, so I didn’t reset the alarm and I got up. I had partially packed up last night, but left the panniers empty. I maneuvered the bike out of the bike house (no an easy task, but much easier when unloaded) and started filling panniers. I then did a once through the house and straightened up anything I had disturbed in my stay. I locked up the house and dropped off a note, a donation, and the key under June’s front porch mat. I started climbing just before 8. I stopped as I passed behind Hope and Jim’s house and got a better overall pictures of the labyrinth and a few shots of the view.
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I woke up at around 8 AM, when June came into the bike house. She told me not to get up, but I told her to come on in. We sat and talked for an hour or so about some of the people that had come through before and about how modern times are so much different than old times. I was able to talk with June a couple of times throughout the day and had a good time during each conversation. Quite a bit of today was taking pictures of as much as I could in the bike house. There were many travel journals and books that I would like to read, but there just wouldn’t be enough time to read that much in a whole week. I started “copying” these by taking digital pictures of each page. It was a pretty quick process, but there were so many pages and articles that I wanted to read. As I am sitting here, I have taken over 1100 digital pictures from things in the house. This will take some time to sort out, but I will be glad that I get a chance to read some of them eventually.
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The rest of my pictures from the Bike House.
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The next two Trans-Am posts are almost entirely pictures. I spent two days at the bike house. I filled up my 1 Gb memory card more times than I could count. The bike house is really hard to describe. You can spend a full day trying to see everything in it and read all the notes and not get done. Luckily, some bad storms hit and I decided to stay. While it was hard to narrow all the pictures down to just two posts, I hope this gives you just a little taste of how extraordinary it is to see the “Cookie Lady” Bike House museum.
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Checkout time was noon, and I got out of my room at 12:05. Then I got to wait about 10 minutes for an empty elevator going down. People were not agreeable to share an elevator with my bike and its 2 spare inches. I actually had to rush to get packed up by noon.

I adjusted my kickstand mount that was working loose. I stopped for lunch at the same bagel place I ate at yesterday. I just wasn’t ready to get riding in the 90+ degree heat. It seems fine when you are already riding, but hard to get going when you have been in air conditioning for the morning. I think it is much like slowly raising the water temperature to boil a frog, where tossing them in a boiling pot will just make them jump out.
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The jails in Palmyra, VA are pretty nice. The officer arrested me around 2 AM and confiscated all of my gear. Just kidding! I didn’t have any problems with camping at the boat ramp last night. Traffic on 15 started to slow around 10 PM and I fell asleep shortly after sending out my emails. I woke up just before 6 and started packing up. I left Palmyra at 6:30 and started my race with traffic to Charlottesville.
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I woke up at the crack of dawn, 5:45. I had packed up everything but my sleeping gear before I went to bed, because I wanted to secure as much of it as I could from any animal or other visitors. I was out of the campground before 6. I still couldn’t find anyone to check in with, so I dropped of a couple singles in the slot near the closed sign, which I felt was far more than the accommodations were worth. The country store just out of the campground had hot biscuit sandwiches. I enjoyed a country ham, egg, and cheese as I hoped for the temperature to rise. It did not, so I geared up for the downhills in 40 degree wind.
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Before willing myself out of my warm sleeping bag, I snapped a picture of my view. I rose into the cold and decided on a cold breakfast to keep with the theme. I finished off my first pack of Fig Newtons and had a mug of Gatorade (my morning drink of choice for that last few days.) The early Gatorade seems to give my muscles what they need to start out. I knew I would be having an early lunch, as I planned to go into Ashland today.

I got a kick out the the simple parts of bicycle touring that the Pete’s and I shared. Cycling clothes that we washed last night while we showered, hanging out to dry. They may have used the on site laundry, I just didn’t have enough to justify it. A little time in the shower with some soap works just as well.

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I started out of the campground, hit the restroom, and did my bike pocket check. You know how you do the pocket slap for your keys and wallet? I do the same for my essentials on the bike after every stop. My water bottle slap came up empty. Megan Pete was holding them out as I rode a few feet back to camp. I made sure that they knew the short cut to get back on route which I had, through much effort, learned last night.
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