Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River

Today we chose to take a long hard ride and cut it into two shorter rides.  First, we have been riding in a record hot day streak in Virginia (23 straight days over 90 degrees), and we would be facing our last great big hill climb.  And, for a change, we had an option open to us to stay somewhere indoors.  Our original plan was to got the distance from Lexington to Charlottesville, Virginia, about 84 miles, all today. Included in today's ride would be the ride up the mountain at "Vesuvius," up to the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  If anyone's ever been on the BRP, it is a road, closed to commercial traffic, that runs along the ridge (hence the name) of the Blue Ridge Mountains from about Asheville, NC to the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.  We used to ride this in North Carolina around Boone and Blowing Rock.  It's a beautiful ride, but typically there's not much up there as far as services.  In this part of the road, there is a small "resort" of cabins in Love, Virginia.  The cabins are dated, are not fancy, but they include a bed, a shower, and an air conditioner that almost cools the cabin and freezes up.  

We started our day in Lexington, taking our time because we knew that we wouldn't need to ride in the hot afternoon.  This meant we could enjoy the breakfast at the Hampton Inn, starting at 7, which they served in a large open meeting room, keeping Covid safe.  This was a nice beginning because we have typically found breakfasts in hotels during this pandemic to be of the variety of a muffin or a breakfast bar and coffee.  Hampton's included eggs, oatmeal, yogurt, muffins, of which we said "all, please."  They were fine with our calorie-loading routine, so we were happy.  We heard that it was going to rain at about 7:30AM, so we waited for the storm front to come in, which it somehow didn't.  Jerry kept re-checking his "Dark Skies" app, and it had moved the storm clouds a little north.  We chose to get moving anyway.  We had covered about 12 miles when it began to rain a bit, then a bit more.  We sat out about 10-15 minutes of rain under some trees, and avoided most of the rain.  

When we hit the town of Vesuvius at mile 20, we knew that this was the point at which we would begin our climb for the day.  Knowing our schedule, and the steepness of the hill, we both decided this hill would be best taken in small bites.  We rolled, up the hill, ever upward, stopping every few tenths of a mile, giving ourselves a chance to catch our breath.  The overall climb was about 2.5 miles, so it wasn't the longest that we'd done, but it was pretty steep.  By the time I got to the top, where I saw the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway, my Bell's jersey was as wet as if it had been dipped in Oberon Ale.  I took it off to wring it out, simply to help it dry.  Jerry caught up a few minutes later (his gearing is a bit lower than mine) 

A welcome sign because it signified the end of the climb

Once we got onto the Parkway, we continued to have some ups and downs, but without the steepness of the way up.  The views from up here are incredible, as we saw years ago in North Carolina.  We stopped a few times for photos, but it's impossible to capture in photos what you see in life.  This part of the Parkway was being resurfaced, so we had to dodge a few construction vehicles, but we were glad to have been here now.  Their resurfacing consists of laying down a layer of tar and then laying down stone on top.  We were lucky in that this crew had been brushing off the excess and blowing any strays so that they can lay down a final coating.  If we had been here earlier we would likely have been riding through a layer of stones.  We rolled along for a few more miles until we found the Royal Oaks Retreat, our home for the night.  Our host was at the Royal Oaks store, where we picked up a couple of drinks and paid for the night. We ordered sandwiches which he'll bring us about 5 (it's after that now), if he doesn't forget.  We got an "efficiency," which has one bed, but it was plenty.  It had about a shower and a half's worth of hot water, and the refrigerator provided turned a cold drink into a tepid one, but we can't be picky on the top of a mountain.  Good enough is good enough.

The views from the Parkway-looking down on the clouds

More views 

While spending the afternoon catching up on e-mails and making attempts to call my office (cell coverage is spotty, but better than the WiFi), we restudied the map for our final push into Richmond in 2 days.  The day calls for 112 miles, and the temperatures will be high 90s, so we looked at any shortcuts we could find and eliminated about 17 miles, taking it into the range we've been handling.  We're hoping the shortcuts are good, but I think it will work.  For Saturday's ride to Tess' apartment in Richmond, we can ride all day and night. We've got the place to stay, with a/c, hot shower and even a car to explore Richmond.  She'll be back from Lake James Sunday night so I can pick her up at the airport.  

Our luxury cabin

Tomorrow's ride will be a 40 some mile ride, starting uphill but mostly downhill, into Charlottesville.  We booked again at a Home2Suites (thanks again Abby) so we could be downtown, or at least close to campus.  This is one campus I do want to see because it was designed by Thomas Jefferson.  We'll hopefully be in by noon, so that we can avoid the heat, and we should be able to tour the town and enjoy a good dinner.  Wow, hard to imagine, but tomorrow will be the final night in a hotel.  After two months on this trip, it is truly hard to believe we are about done.  We've really enjoyed traveling through Virginia, which has been beautiful and filled with history, but it will be over very soon.