Day 15 - Ups and downs

After one day in an Inn near Troutville we headed to Christiansburg. At the beginning this stage was very beautiful because of the stunning landscape. As we almost arrived in Christiansburg, we had to climb a very steep slope. "The steepest slope on the entire route" like Meghan Dorsett said. We met her in her store "Cambria Toy Station" as we tried to figure out where to stay at night. She invited us to set up our tent in the backyard of a house of her which she would like to sell. To all cyclists on the USBR 76: It's worth it to say hello to Meghan in her shop! (Christiansburg, where the route is xing the railroad)

Meanwhile we are in Damascus, in the backyard of "The Place". This is a hostel where a lot of appalachian trail hikers and transamerica cyclists meet. To get there it took us only 31 km (20 miles). This stage today was so short because yesterday we got surprised by a huge thunderstorm in the mountains with heavy rain. We got soaked to the skin and we had no possibillities to dry our stuff cause it rained nearly all night long. Even on the next morning we had our breakfast in wet conditions. This is why we decided to stay here for one night.

Tomorrow we head to Council and next "steepest slope on the entire route" is waiting for us after Hayters Gap.

Day 4 - Pain in Virginia

Yesterday we started our day at Bob and Kathys house. We deciced to take an off route to lake anna state park because we knew there was a campground. And we didn't want to go all the way down to Richmond. And indeed, we found the campground! We had a very quiet night, maybe it was because we were nearly alone.
The next day we decided to get on route again, to get to Charlottesville. Park Ranger Schular opened the visitor center for us and helped us with the route planning. Thank you again! Unfortunatelly it was a very cloudy morning, so we expected some raindrops. However, this is how our day looked like: Rain, rain, rain and rain again. Nevertheless we did 125 km (78 miles) untill we reached Charlottesville. We arrived at night and we even had to search an accomodation. And now we are in a very expenisve hotel, but after a day like this we really didn't care about prices.