Virginia

Virginia was most definitely a learning experience for me. This cross country trip was my first multi-day bicycle trip, and also my first time camping. Lucky for me it turns out I love sleeping outside in my tent. Had I hated it those 2 months would have sucked because I lived out of that thing for the most part. Also lucky for me, I can sleep on basically anything. Bed, floor, grass, concrete, plywood, it's all the same to me. (actually I think i prefer the floor to a bed). In any case, it takes time to get used to living on your bicycle / out of a tent.

We were pedalling anywhere from 5-8 hours a day (our longest day was 9hours in Utah/Nevada) and that's just pedalling time. Stopping to take pictures, rest, and eat are additional. Basically, we had a lot of really long days. Virginia was tough because my body needed to get used to pedalling for so many hours. Lots of leg pain, knee soreness, butt soreness, and some elbow soreness. While riding the butt pain was most noticeable and at night when laying in my sleeping bag the leg soreness was most noticeable.

Virginia was surprisingly hilly. The peaks weren't high compared to what we'd see out west but we were constantly gaining and losing elevation especially as we crossed the Appalachian mountains. We had a wide variety of places to stay while traveling through VA ranging from Kiki's friends houses, a fire station, free hostel, camping behind churches/fire houses, and 1 motel because of weather. I also inadvertently started what would become a state by state "stuffed animal crane machine challenge" In a gas station in Whytsville, VA I played a crane machine and won a stuffed animal whale who i named Ecco and who became our mascot. (Story about that continued in Kentucky...)

The only bike troubles we had in VA was a broken spoke followed by a flat the next day (both Chris) The highlight of VA was probably getting to meet June Curry a.k.a "the cookie lady" after reading so much about her before setting out on the trip. She is the sweetest old lady who lives by herself in Afton, VA. She has been feeding and providing lodging for cross country cyclist since the 1970's. She also takes a polaroid picture of every cyclist she meets and puts them in binders separated by year. The "bike museum" where she lets cyclists stay is fully stocked with food and the walls are covered with post cards. June is a living legend among trans-america cyclists and I sure won't forget her.

Photos from our visit with the cookie lady

All Photos of Virginia

And finally... An update

So, it's been a while since I touched this thing. Granted, I was kind of busy riding my bicycle 3,800 miles and all but enough with my feeble excuses. This is how it's gonna work. I'm gonna post an entry for each state with some words about highlights of the state etc etc and put a few photos up as well. The rest of the photos for said state can be found on my Picasa photo albums which I will conveniently link at the bottom of each entry. Simple, I know. If you're too impatient and just want to look at pictures then here is a direct link to the main page where you can look at photos state by state. Hopefully I actually do this in a timely fashion and if not you've got something to look at in the meantime. It's win win really. http://picasaweb.google.com/ggrothusen

Now for some stats:

Total miles: 3,803
Total hours on bicycle: 347
Total Days: 66
Rest Days: 7.5
Avg miles per day: 65

Bicycle problems: 2 flat tires (1 in Colorado & 1 in Utah) Broke chain twice (Both in Kentucky)

Accidents: Crashed in Kansas (major bruise and some scratches but nothing serious)

Ice cream consumed: Immeasurable