Wednesday 6/4/05

Today had to be the most gruelling excersise we have ever done in our lives. We left Charlottesville about 11am and followed the highway which was not too difficult, then we started climbing gradually still thinking its not too bad untill we turned off onto a country lane going up through a village called Afton where a lady by the name of Gene Curry usually gives food and board to bikers to the Trans American but unfortunately she recently had a stroke so we didn't stop by (hope you get well soon). Anyway through this village we climbed close to 1000ft in a mile, it was ridiculous but there was more pain to come. We followed the blue ridge parkway, a trail which snakes over the Appalachians for 100s of miles for 27 of the hardest miles ever. Its difficult to say just how hard it was but put it this way we climbed 4 or 5 peaks the highest point of which was 3,800ft, climbing in total around 6000ft taking us about five hours all of this in the most intense sun ( Alex burnt and that doesn't happen easily to him). We came off the ridge about 7.30pm which was a relief, the downhill was awesome, we were catching speeds of 40 mph and above down twisting backroads for miles upon mile until we reach a town called Vesuvius where we grabbed a bite to eat at Gerties country store. Everyone who had been through the place including a whole load of Trans American cyclists had written on the wall there and we left our mark too, it was litterally wall to wall graffiti. The folks there were nice, and the burger rustled up for us was something else.We could have camped there and were very tempted to as the night was setting in but we needed our hot showers so we decided to push an extra 10 miles or so down the road with or torches on our heads through the pitch black night. When we got to the site we were gutted. We pitched camped in the dark and found the bathroom to be practically third world. We showered that night under a trickle of freezing cold water and hit the sack exhausted. All in all that day we covered 75miles.

All day across this kind of terrain in scorching heat is a killer!