Rockin' Down the Highway

Okay, after the extreme frustration of last night's attempted post, where I finished the complete blog, loaded the photos, and clicked "post," only to have the post appear with nothing on it, I will get back to our activities for the past 2 days.

As I had explained yesterday (but no one saw this), we have been killing ourselves for the past few days, trying to reach the next hotel.  Springfield to Berea, Berea to Hazard, Hazard to Breaks.  All were really long days that were done in 100 degree plus heat index days.  In addition, as we got into eastern Kentucky, the amount of feet climbed steadily climbed.  On our worst days in the Rockies we were hitting 4-5,000 feet of elevation change.  The worst days in the Missouri Ozarks totaled about 5-6,000 feet.  In Kentucky we hit 9,000 feet for the past few days.  Man, we're tired.  No one is really to blame for our long days, but there are just no spots to stay between these long runs.  As I've said often, we are looking to do indoor sleeping on most occasions, and especially in the heat, so that we can get some good old air conditioning and those "luxuries" like a shower and food.  Adventure Cycling's maps don't really get you to those luxuries on a regular basis.  This is, of course, made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic, as we are seeing most B&Bs, and some hostels, closed.  We do think, though, that Adventure Cycling's idea of a typical rider on the Trans-America trail being closer to 20 than to 60, and I think they consider "stealth camping," where you throw up a tent on someone's property, to be a regular occurrence.  This means not only are you setting up in 90+ degree heat, after a long day of cycling, but you have no water, food, or bathrooms.  That's just not how the dinosaurs roll.

Coal has a heritage, and Virginia celebrates it

So what can we do about it?  Well, we study the map continually, looking for ways to either short-cut, or at least minimize miles.  Just like we did in Kansas by taking US-50 for 30 miles, cutting off another 20, or doing the same to Pueblo, CO, we find some routes that are really made for cars and trucks and taking them anyway.  Typically this actually means that the roads can be safer than the suggested routes.  Rather than be on a simple two-way road, a larger road many times means two lanes in each direction, meaning cars can move over to another lane.  In addition, many of these roads have paved wide shoulders, further removing us from traffic.  The downside, and this is a big one, is that cars and trucks are whizzing by at higher speeds.  Even if we're removed from their path, it still is loud and nerve-wracking.  It's not something you want to do for too long.  It does make us appreciate the rural routes on the TA trail, at least for the scenery and quiet.  

Entering West Virginia, if even for just one night

In this case we looked at the maps and found a route, on US 460, that would take us through southwest Virginia, up through Bluefield, WV, and back down into Blacksburg, VA.  Taking this route would be about 140 miles, saving about 40 miles from the prescribed route.  More importantly, and this was the biggest consideration, was that instead of 18,000 feet of climbing on the TA route, we would do about 6,000.  Decision made.  The climbing in the heat was getting downright dangerous, as we would usually need to stop mid-hill and rest, just to get our temperatures and heart rates back down.  I don't think it was sustainable.  So we made the decision to go 460.  How is this difference possible?  Think about driving on most interstates.  The route doesn't go around and up and over mountains, they typically blast through them.  Instead of steep grade hills, the grades are gentle enough to keep spinning, not grinding over them.  It's a whole different experience.

The first day, from Breaks Interstate Park, went fairly well.  After leaving the park, and somehow having to climb again (I thought we were at the top), we descended down and in about 20 miles made it to Grundy, VA.  I had been through Grundy on a regular basis years ago (36-38 years ago) when my sales territory included it.  Grundy wasn't much to look at then, but surprisingly seems much better today.  They have a WalMart Supercenter that would be the envy of most cities.  Because there's not much room between the mountains, they have built a super super center atop 2 levels of parking garage.  This place looked swank!  We visited and picked up some sunscreen and the obligatory Gatorade on our way through town.  We rolled on down the highway further, having lunch at Richlands, where we found a McDonald's to score a drink.  Unfortunately, the lobby was closed for construction, and the drive thru line was ridiculous.  A quick download of their app and we placed drink orders online and they brought them out to us, to the amazement of most of the drive through customers on line.  We ate our Subway sandwiches at Mickey D's.  After filling up bottles at a convenience store, we were on our way again.  We went back onto 460, and found the going good, if not boring and very noisy.  We clicked down the miles until hitting upon the outskirts of Bluefied.  Unfortunately, we had put the city into our maps, so it took us to the center of Bluefield, not to where the hotels are.  After fixing that mistake we found that we would have saved a number of miles and a lot of headaches if we had stayed on 460, where the Quality hotel eventually appeared.  In any case, they thankfully had a restaurant, which had one employee and 2 customers, but served a surprisingly good burger.  We retired to our room and I began my frustrating attempt and blogging that ended in zero results.  

Monday's totals:  About 90 miles, with about 3,600 feet climbed.   It's hard to say for sure, because for the second day in a row, my Strava app stopped recording.  I know I'm likely hitting something mid-day that causes it to stop recording, but for cryin' out loud, why make it possible to bump that thing and stop the recording?  I'm giving it up, as it also sucks battery life like crazy.  

This morning was actually more of the same.  We started out from the Quality Inn in Bluefield, took a right at the end of the driveway, and headed out US-460.  Google Maps continually wanted to route us onto other roads, but I wasn't going to take that bait.  We do like to ride on paved roads, and Google can't tell the difference.  Strangely Waze, owned by Google, has a setting where you can set up "paved roads only,"  but I wasn't ready to turn this over to Waze, as it sucks battery at twice the rate of old G-Maps.  Strangely, Google Maps kept pointing us to a series of roads, where the mileage was about 8 miles more than our chosen 460, but they kept calculating the time shorter.  I checked the elevations to see if that was the difference, but there was a difference of 36 feet in elevation gain.  In any case, we didn't need maps since we were crusin' 460.  

The rumble strips and the luxurious shoulder of 460, at least in West Virginia

There really wasn't much to report today from the road.  We went along the road, which in West Virginia was a beautiful road with a paved shoulder that basically gave us a private lane next to the main road.  When we passed back into Virginia the shoulder disappeared, as did one of the two lanes for a little while, so it felt pretty dangerous, at least until it widened back out to 2 lanes per direction.  We stopped a couple of times for drinks and a snack, but basically we were into Blacksburg by about 12:15, covering 60 miles in about 5 hours, including stops.  We got in early enough that we stopped for lunch in Blacksburg near the Virginia Tech campus at a place called the London Underground, a pub that you can tell serves students.  I had a celebratory beer, Jerry didn't, and lunch was pretty good.  We talked to the manager and the waitress about what's going on about school.  They are looking to bring students back onto campus in a few weeks, and both of these people were very concerned that the students will bring back behavior that will likely get them shut down.  These are businesses that need the support of students, but they realize that without safety measures they are back to closed.  I hope they can walk that fine line and get the students to act accordingly.

Back into Virginia after a night in West-By-God-Virginia

We cruised down Main street in Blacksburg and found the Red Carpet Inn, a small, older motel that was described as "dated but clean."  We found that to be true, and the rate was okay, so we took it.  We showered, washed our clothes, and just hung out for the rest of the afternoon.  It was threatening to storm all afternoon, so we expected this, but it didn't rain more than a little.  I hear we're likely going to get a bunch of that tomorrow.  Dinner at a chain-style Italian place with the all-Italian music pumped in, and then back to the room.  I'm anticipating a FaceTime call to celebrate daughter Abby's 28th birthday (a day early) at Lake James.  I hope you guys can get that organized!  I miss being at the lake with you.

So, what do you think about all day while spinning along?  A whole lot of things.  Being that this is about the last week of this cross-country trip, it's likely a good time to talk about what I've learned crossing America.  As I've said, the bicycle is just a delivery vehicle, taking us to experiences I would never have without it.  We go to places that most people never will; even if you were to drive the same roads, it's very likely you would experience it a different way.  We stop in stores and restaurants that most people would likely pass up, looking for the next chain restaurant.  Not that doing so is a crime, it is just more familiar.  That's one of the things that I was reflecting on today as we cruised over and beyond most of the local experiences by simply taking route 460.  The most modern roads make it very easy to get from one major city to the next.  That's a good thing and a bad thing.  It makes the travel experience very clean and neat, but it bypasses most of America.  I've mentioned so many downtowns in so many small towns that are just devastated, likely never to come back.  They've been destroyed by not only the Walmarts, but in the small towns by the Dollar Generals, that lurk on the outskirts of towns, taking business away from those traditional downtowns of yore.  And not that this is a bad thing either.  Can you imagine a Walmart showing up in your little town, and suddenly you have access to items that were out of your reach, or out of your town, at competitive prices?  The Walmarts and Dollar Generals aren't bad actors, they're just ultra-efficient in their supply chains, putting the mom and pops out of business.  It's just a fact of life.  I wish though, that there was a way for the larger chains to try not to rip the life out of these small places and perhaps figure out a way to enhance what's already there.  I think the most jarring example was recently between Carbondale and Marion, Illinois, when we rode between cities and just never left a solid strip of commercial stores and businesses.  Each store was uglier than the next, and I can see a time when this strip will be a junkyard of abandoned buildings because none has any lasting value.  There is no central city left in either town, just a pile of bad commercial buildings from one city to the next.

The beautiful countryside of southwest Virginia

I felt bad the past two days for bypassing the small towns and front yards that we've seen for the past few months.  It is a good experience to see how others live, and to interact in places that you would normally not go.  I'm not sure I've come to any better understanding of the world, but I can't imagine that this experience can't help but shape how I feel about others.  At the same time, I see why we do this, why we bypass.  It makes our lives more efficient, easier to be able to go from one place to another as quickly as possible.   But Interstate travel isn't very satisfying, is it?  It's just time in the car, a few songs on the radio (I'm dating myself, the satellite radio, or Spotify) and we arrive at our destination.  

We return to the Adventure Cycling route tomorrow, and I'm sure that I'll be bitching under my breath whenever I have to climb yet another pointless hill that I'll just descend a few seconds later.  I hope, though, that I appreciate the last week of this journey and soak in what I can before I go back to "regular life."  

Today's results: 60 miles ridden, about 3,600 (gently sloped) feet climbed