Day6, Charlottesville to Love

Start time: about 8.00
Start location: Charlottesville
Start State: Virginia
Start weather: overcast
Total millage so far: 286.22

Stops:
Notes:

Finish time:
Finish location: Love
Finish State: Virginia
Finish weather: Sunny
Miles today: 49.99 miles
Total millage so far: 336.21
Today's top speed: 41.8
Today's average speed: 12.0

Music played:

Ministry Of Sound - The Annual 2009

Ministry Of Sound - Chilled 1991-2008

Blog for this day:

Well lets start today's blog with what I forgot about yesterday as I was too tired! Dogs, bloody dogs. The advantage they have is that they boost your adrenalin and wake you up. But when they start barking and you see them running out into the road behind you, you just put your foot down. So the two we had chase yesterday were pretty vicious, they were not giving up. I wonder if this is where Cavendish trains for his sprints! I certainly put my foot down even though I was tired.

So last night I had a lovely night in a hotel, yummy!! I certainly recommend a nice relaxing quiet night in a hotel once a week. So I’m here for 12 weeks, that should be fine J)) So I was still up at 6am so I could get back to the group for 7am breakfast. The town was amazing, very sweet with lots of young people about. We stopped off at a coffee shop as the others were there, 2 Jocks sitting down lol. Anyway, zipped out of town into my most amazing scenery. As i’ve seen and said before it seems that around every corner and over every hill, there is just the most fantastic countryside. I cant say enough how beautiful it is and how you must come. I really get annoyed when people keep going back year after year to the same place when there are so many fantastic places to see. The thing is, it gets your brain working and all your senses ignite so that it becomes a drug and you want to keep seeing and doing more different things. The world is still a pretty big place.

Anyway, boiling hot day again with burning sun. I can’t remember too much as I'm trying to take in so much “data”, that its hard to remember it at the end of the day. Lots of road kill today and some beautiful blue butterfly's. There is also a lot of money around as some of the houses are pretty dam big, with proper horses in the fields, not the ones your get down Weston-Super-Mare. The view of the mountains are pretty intimidating when you see them in the distance with clouds floating below their summits. When I got to the hills, they started pretty nasty with switchbacks, the long steady climbs that come later are much easier, although the roads are amazing still. I popped in to see June the cookie lady, gave her a postcard of London which she seemed to like a lot. I didn’t get to go in and was dripping with sweat anyway. I got up to the top of her road and a couple of coppers were doing stop checks which was cool to see. I got confused by the directions and had to double back and ask them for directions. I got up to the top and again had to ask some hairy bikers for directions. Dam those motor bikers, very nice and friendly, but blasting out music from their speakers. So glad I cycle so I can hear what nature is saying when I look at it. I saw a couple of bunnies earlier which surprise surprise, I called Buster, and another ground hog. I saw him, he saw me, I stopped, he stopped and turned and ran. Oh well. White Hall was fun, another small town with a shop, this one had a TransAm book to sign, which of course, we did.

Cycling up the Blue Parkway Ridge was amazing, this is where Top Gear did one of their programs. Got to base camp and to pop down to the local store. We stayed in a place called Love, I guess I was expecting more as it was a one-shop town. So the store, I went in and there were a couple of hunter type crazies talking to the guy behind the counter, who looked just as crazy. They were yapping away about night vision scopes on their guns and all kinds of other crazy shit like silencers. I bought what I needed and ran. Earlier on in the day I pulled over and had my lunch and there were a couple of other guys who were yapping away about something and didn't like it that I interrupted their privacy, and they moved off. A few miles up the road, I saw them again talking to each other, very strange. Met up with 3 guys on their TransAm, 2 for Maryland and the other from Philly, so we talked a bit which was cool. Oh just remembered by looking at the map, Jefferson was born in Shadwell, I guess that’s not the one in South London!

That’s all I can really remember about this day which is a shame, but there is just so much to take in each day. Tonight, well, we are staying in a lovely house with a hot-tub. Got a good ride down into Vesuvius, very fast apparently.