Where we lose Contact

We just stopped blogging for a while. It was a confluence of events that led to us dropping off the radar, something that we are still trying to rectify (that I'm riding a blog about beginning the Appalachians when I've just finished them gives you a sense of time). Our goal after Mineral was to make it down to Charlottesville and take a rest day, something we hadn't done in mumble mumble mumble. The theme of the day was "avoid the official route at all times" and it came together splendidly. We left north out of Mineral on a tip from the blogs I have been following early in the morning and had gentle rolling hills all through to Louisa on route 22 where we eventually turned south onto Poindexter Rd. which took us through the Green Springs National Historic Landmark district. What that translates to is more easy scenic riding through pastures and by ranch houses.

But Google Maps has a sinister side to it's bike directions. It almost had us turn onto an unpaved road which led who knows where for who knows how long.We kept on going south instead and emerged out at the highway again. One of our worst habits, that we have under control now, is taking too long of a break in the middle of the day. We sat at a McDonalds reading and relaxing while the day just became hotter and hotter, and by the time we left it was scorching again.

We needed to stop by a grocer at some point, and since our camp was well out of the way of Charlottesville proper, we decided to take another detour around Lake Monticello (altogether avoiding Thomas Jefferson's house, which is a shame, but if you want to know what it looks like, just turn a nickel over) and this is where Maps betrayed us.

While you are looking at directions, the roads are kind of... simplified, so you don't get too good of an idea of what they are really like. We ventured into the woods and eventually the road disappeared. Pavement became gravel, and eventually a red clay, wrought with puddles from a storm the previous night. It wasn't that long, really, so we had to press on. Interesting riding, shady, and very creepy. There was but one house on the path, and as we passed a whole brood of pups and nursing mother came out after us. We didn't stand a chance. The mother was nipping at Nikki's trailer, and it was all we could to do walk our bikes through. Their owner eventually called them back and we were on our way again, but it made me wonder what else would happen.

As it turns out, not much. It was hot and because we were trying to avoid the big hills leading into town we took other big hills in a private neighborhood. Everyone wanted a house on a separate peak it seemed like, so the climbs were abrupt and demoralizing. I'm sure we looked silly to all the retired folk as we sat in some one's yard munching on snacks.

But yeah. We made it up the last biiiig hill (Red Hill Road!) to the Charlottesville KOA Kampground, where we were told the internet was out and that they couldn't check us in. They would let us know when we could check in, and were incredibly friendly about it. The two people working in the office were pretty young, maybe around our age, and very fun to talk with so I found excuses to wander around making conversation. We set up our camp in as private a spot as we could, there were only two other tent groups there at the time, on the other end of the road, and Nikki disappeared to the pool.

The next day was more of the same. We relaxed, and I rode north into town 9 miles to get food and call home. We had a rowdy group show up in the middle of the second night, drive around for a while, and proceed to drink and party until 2 in the morning. Not the best sleep that we've had. It was a trend for Virginia.

'So why didn't we hear from you for so long?' I ask myself using your voices. The campground was an utter deadzone for Verizon, and Nikki doesn't seem to have service anywhere so doubly for her. It was alright, we were in once place and were going to relax. We'd call people eventually, and blog even more eventually. But we lost the momentum. At the end of each day we were too sweaty and tired to write anything. But we'll fix that.