BlueRidge

Day 5

Wednesday, 30 May 2007
Roanoke, VA to Meadows of Dan, VA
62.8 miles, 6h58m, 9.0 mph
Elapsed Time: 9h09m, Max speed: 38.8mph
Total Climbing: 5664ft, Max elevation: 3396ft
Total mileage: 361.5

We left our motel a little before 8am after consuming several more slices of last night's leftover pizza. Then we carefully worked our way back to the Parkway. Then we climbed for 8 miles.

Today was all about finding food and water. The Parkway was not built for bicycle travel and services are way too far apart. Not only that, but there are not many services off the Parkway in easy cycling reach (that is, without having to come down off the ridge). Anyway, the constant concern for finding food and water detracts a little bit from the pure enjoyment of cycling.

There was supposed to be a small restaurant at Adney Gap, but there was only a small former restaurant overgrown with weeds. It cost us about 20 minutes to learn this. But we got to see all of Adney Gap!

About 10 miles down the road we found the store formerly known as Bus Shoppe Snacks. If I didn't know it was supposed to be there I never would have noticed it. They were having the place painted and the sign was down. It is basically an antique and old-timey collectable place in a house. They sell a few snacks. They also had a few sodas for sale--not very cold--and no water because they had turned it off. They were nice people though. We bought a couple of sodas and drank them in the yard. Four miles down the road we reached the Smart View picnic area, which had water. So we were good for the rest of the day--except for food.

Bus Shoppe Snacks??

It was another 10 miles before we reached the Tuggle Gap restaurant for lunch (it was about 2pm). It also looked like it was about to rain so we went in and had cheeseburgers and bought more Gatorade. It only sprinkled a little while we were in the restaurant. We stayed dry but just a half mile down the road the pavement was wet and it was wet most of the rest of the way. We got lucky.

Late lunch. Good cheeseburgers.

At Rocky Knob we were able to get ahold of JT, who was driving down to extract Kevin from the ride. It looked like we would arive in Meadows of Dan at about the same time. Cell service is spotty in the mountains, but it's a lot better than I thought it would be. I have no signal at my motel tonight but if I walk just up the street into downtown Meadows of Dan I can use the phone.

As the old saying goes, the road to Meadows of Dan runs through Mabry's Mill. The mill is the most photographed site on the Parkway. It's a nice place and really cool as far as mills go, but when I think of the Blue Ridge Parkway I don't think of Mabry's Mill. I really don't think of anything. My mind goes completely blank.

Completely blank.

It's the most photographed site, so I took two.

JT arrived shortly after Kevin and I reached Meadows of Dan and I got into my room. They dropped me off downtown so I could get dinner and they headed back north. I'm not sure yet how far I'm riding tomorrow (my first day on my own), but I'm trying to set up something not too hard. Linda is making my lodging arrangements for tomorrow and the next day. I hope to hear from her when I drift back into cell service tomorrow morning.

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