In the morning we woke up and the other family was already awake. They offered us more marshmallows, hot chocolate, and coffee. We accepted and had a few toasted marshmallows and shared a mug of warm hot chocolate. We stood around and chatted with the couple for a while and it turns out that the husband, Bradley Spain, was a civil engineer and that his wife was a math major. She said her favorite subject was abstract algebra ("the only numbers in abstract algebra are the page numbers!!") which made Tim and I cringe in horror. We like numbers, and we really like them when they apply to real life situations. They were both scuba divers and recommended that we learn because there are great places to dive in CA. They looked at our maps and told us that if we went half a mile off course we would get to a nice plaza with food, a cafe, and a backpacking store. We were low on denatured alcohol, and fatty had popped his inflatable mattress pad so we decided it was a worthwhile detour.
Eventually we realized it was getting late in the morning so we returned to packing. Tim kept hearing a lot of dogs barking and we found out that there was an agility dog show at the campground. We headed over to take a look and Tim took a lot of photos with his telephoto lens of dogs jumping over hurdles, through weave poles and all that jazz. We talked to some dog trainers who said the hardest part was to train a dog to be aware of their back legs. They don't pay attention to their back legs; they just kind of follow the front. The trainer said that you put ladders on the ground and teach them to walk through, and sometimes you put bells on their legs. Then we realized, again, that it was late, and we should head off. We were losing time so we set off and started the day's bike ride. About two or three miles later, we bumped into another couple named Mike and Joan and stopped to chat.
At this point, we seemed doomed to a short day. They were really nice, and warned us that if we didn't stay in Catawba, there would be nowhere else to stay for quite a long time. They were biking from Cincinati, Ohio to Washington, DC and they warned us that we might see some pretty vicious dogs. We eventually got back to pedaling and about ten miles later we took the detour to the plaza. It was now noon and we'd only ridden 13 miles or so. It's somewhat frustrating not to have 30 or so miles under your belt when you stop for lunch, but it was worth it this morning. We got a strawberry fluff smoothie that was .... interesting and a delicious key lime milkshake at the cafe. Tim purchased a new sleeping mat and some denatured alcohol at the backpacking outfitters. There were a lot of hikers from the appalachian trail. We ate a fatty lunch at Wendy's where the locals gaped at us and our bikes in horror.
We kept biking and finally, after many tiring rollercoaster hills and roads and unfriendly kids racing by us on belching tractors made it to Catawba, VA, which is not my favorite place in the world. Both bed and breakfasts that were supposed to be there had apparently shut down, and in my opinion, it's because nobody wants to be there. There was also no hotel. We kept trying to ask people for help, but they would drive by us, flat out ignore us, or scream at us. A really rude farmer was really unclear with his answers and clearly wanted us to leave him alone. We were really exhasuted and we decided we had nearly no options. There was nowhere to stealth camp and we could not for the life of us find the appalachian trail (it's public land so you can camp there). We finally found a nicer (yet not nice) farmer whose wife told us we could camp at the General Store, which was 5 miles back where we'd come. She could tell we were really tired so she ended up being nicer and having her husband put our bikes in her truck and driving us back to the store. When we got to the store, we unloaded and met four appalachian trail hikers. They were going to stay somewhere else that night though, so we got subs at the general store and sat with them to chat for a while. When dinner was over, we retired to a room in the garage with a fooseball table and just fell asleep.
Time with Tim:
Awoke to the sound of what sounded like a bark-off. I was ready for a team of sled dogs to blow over the hill with some crazy person riding a sled on the dry ground. Instead, it was a dog agility show! We went over and watched people make dogs do silly things. I always wonder what the dogs are thinking when they go over see saws and through tubes. Do they like it or are they all, "Fine, I'll do it just this one last time!" I liked it best when the dogs didn't obey at all and the owners are furiously gesticulating. So when you are biking, you have mad time to think. My mind picks one topic to obsess over and today it was silly little caterpillars. Theres this kind that seem to like just walking on roads. I kept seeing them. I wondered if they could see well enough to know what they were crossing until I wathced one go from walking perpendicular to the road to parallel. Incidently, there were larger numbers of squished caterpillars walking parallel to the road. I wondered how long they had been walking before the tire of doom go them. I didn't really conclude much from this caterpillar study, but there sure are a lot of them. Also, Catawba, VA, named after a tasty wine, is a shitty place.
We kept biking and finally, after many tiring rollercoaster hills and roads and unfriendly kids racing by us on belching tractors made it to Catawba, VA, which is not my favorite place in the world. Both bed and breakfasts that were supposed to be there had apparently shut down, and in my opinion, it's because nobody wants to be there. There was also no hotel. We kept trying to ask people for help, but they would drive by us, flat out ignore us, or scream at us. A really rude farmer was really unclear with his answers and clearly wanted us to leave him alone. We were really exhasuted and we decided we had nearly no options. There was nowhere to stealth camp and we could not for the life of us find the appalachian trail (it's public land so you can camp there). We finally found a nicer (yet not nice) farmer whose wife told us we could camp at the General Store, which was 5 miles back where we'd come. She could tell we were really tired so she ended up being nicer and having her husband put our bikes in her truck and driving us back to the store. When we got to the store, we unloaded and met four appalachian trail hikers. They were going to stay somewhere else that night though, so we got subs at the general store and sat with them to chat for a while. When dinner was over, we retired to a room in the garage with a fooseball table and just fell asleep.
Time with Tim:
Awoke to the sound of what sounded like a bark-off. I was ready for a team of sled dogs to blow over the hill with some crazy person riding a sled on the dry ground. Instead, it was a dog agility show! We went over and watched people make dogs do silly things. I always wonder what the dogs are thinking when they go over see saws and through tubes. Do they like it or are they all, "Fine, I'll do it just this one last time!" I liked it best when the dogs didn't obey at all and the owners are furiously gesticulating. So when you are biking, you have mad time to think. My mind picks one topic to obsess over and today it was silly little caterpillars. Theres this kind that seem to like just walking on roads. I kept seeing them. I wondered if they could see well enough to know what they were crossing until I wathced one go from walking perpendicular to the road to parallel. Incidently, there were larger numbers of squished caterpillars walking parallel to the road. I wondered how long they had been walking before the tire of doom go them. I didn't really conclude much from this caterpillar study, but there sure are a lot of them. Also, Catawba, VA, named after a tasty wine, is a shitty place.
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