Tuesday, August 8, 2000
Today we rode our bicycle 62 miles from Haysi, VA to Glade Springs. We crossed the new Appalachian Mountains and are in the valley between the old and new Appalachian Mountains. We got up at 6:00 AM and began riding the bicycle at 7:00 AM. The fog was so heavy that Mary Kay had to constantly wipe the moisture off of her glasses. Since we started the day with a 2-mile steep down hill, this wiping action did not make the stocker feel good. After the downhill we began a search for breakfast. All the restaurants we passed were closed until we arrived in Honaker. We finally ate breakfast at 10:30 AM. By then we had traveled 28 miles. We did stop and eat a banana and ½ an orange out of the food we carry on the bicycle 12 miles earlier. As we left the restaurant, I noticed that the bicycle was acting funny. Looking at the rear tire I noticed that it was going flat. We went to a gas station connivance mart and replaced the tube. This took about 30 minutes so we did not leave Honaker until 11:30 AM.
We crossed two major hills. Before we reached the top of either of these hills we had to get off the bicycle and push the bicycle up the hill. We got caught in a thunderstorm while going up the second hill. We took refuge under a tree and it rained so hard that we still got wet, so eventually started riding in the rain. The rain did cool down the temperature and make riding a little better. At Honaker, the temperature was 80 degrees. In addition to the major climbs, we had several minor climbs. For the day we climbed 4,250 feet, the greatest amount of climbing in one day for the whole trip to date. We also ended the day with exactly 5000 miles on our Rans Screamer, which we bought last September.
Ever since Booneville, KY we have been passing fields of tobacco growing along side the road. Many of the fields were small, some as small as ½ acre in size. Most were growing in fields in the valleys between the hills wherever a field could be cultivated.
As we came into Meadowview a man stopped and asked if we were looking for a biker that had gone through town 24 hours earlier. He had noticed Paul looking at a map and thought we must have been riding together even though we were a day apart. Today we were riding on the 1976 Bi-Centennial route which many bicyclists follow.
