Back On The Road!!!

Sorry for the delay in posting on the blog, we've had poor luck finding internet or wireless service to use Cynthia's netbook.

Cynthia visited the orthopedist while we were at home and was ordered off of heavy activity in the knee. She was diagnosed with chrondromalacia, damage to the cartilage under the patella. She's pretty devastated, as she had put in a huge committment to this project. To avoid abandoning the project, she will continue to follow the ride as my support driver while she heals until she can start riding again. Anyway, back to the updates:

July 19th - Day 6 (on the road): Palmyra to Afton, VA - 53 miles
We drove down last night and got into the Mineral Fire Department (where we stayed before) at 12:30am. I've been waking up every day between 5 or 6am, so it was a short night's sleep. This morning, we drove to Palmyra, where we stopped riding last week, so I could start from there. About 20miles through the day, we met up at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's estate. We didn't want to pay to go up to the mansion and see all of the grounds, so we didn't stay long, but not before Cynthia got a picture with Jefferson's statue.

The early day was pretty uneventful, just increasing rolling hills as we approach the Appalachian Mountains. I didn't get much sleep last night and didn't eat often enough on the road, because I was in a rush to get miles in and I was stupid, so I was pretty fatigued by the final long climb into Afton and the Cookie Lady's house.

We stayed at "The Cookie Lady" June Curry's bike house that she's been letting riders stay in since our route was established back in 1976 as a part of the "Bikecentennial". The Cookie Lady is 88 years old now and has HOURS worth of amazing stories about riders that have stayed in the bike house over the years. Our photo will appear on her website at the end of the season in October at: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/CookieHouse. The "bike house" could very well pass as a apartment building, with four rooms with multiple couches to sleep on and a full stocked kitchen (food provided). The most interesting part of the bike house is that every inch of the interior of the house is covered with biker memorabilia going back to 1976. Nearly everyone that stays there leaves some little item that symbolizes their ride. It's truly amazing to see and maybe I'll post a picture on here some day, once we get our photos downloaded. There's definitely more to say about June and the bike house, but I think that's enough for now. Oh, one last thing, the farm across the street from the bike house has a resident peacock that surprised us as we walked out of the house.

The Afton Mountain looms over us as we sign off for the night. This will be my first time riding up a true mountain, so it should be fun.