Travel Inn Motel, Glade Spring VA 21.00 Monday 22rd March (Day 8)

Out early at 07.15, looking for breakfast, Clear blue sky after a night of heavy rain. We stopped at a diner just outside Wytheville. Large oatmeal, toast and scrambled eggs. Usual sort of crowd; mostly small groups of middle-aged men, mostly wearing baseball caps. Just like us, in fact. At this time of day you will nearly always find a couple of policemen, sitting on their own, eating breakfast. At least one of these will not be a slim gentleman. One old boy on his own in the corner, a dead ringer for Homer Simpson’s dad, yells sarcastic comments at most of the people entering. We escape this

The telly was on and the big news is that the Healthcare Bill has been passed. A real piece of history.

The TV weather forecast looks bad. Rain and snow showers in Virginia, just as we are about to embark on a few really difficult days.

It’s not a long day, about 46 miles but there are ominous clouds ahead and it starts to get very cold mid-morning. Provided you don’t have to cycle into the wind, I actually prefer this to hot weather which I find really draining. Mike doesn’t agree.

I have grown to love US-11. A good road surface, manageable hills (mostly) and you still get to see most of the countryside (and, unfortunately, a lot more road kill). It’s saved us a good few miles and a lot of nasty hills in the last couple of days. My heart sinks whenever we turn off it but today we leave it for the last time. I’m on the lookout for its equivalent into Kentucky.

Lunch is in the Riverside Café in Chilhowie, a one-street town on US 11 . Hot beef and vegetable soup and an open turkey sandwich. The latter consists of two pieces of white sliced bread covered in mashed potato and a couple of slices of Bernard Matthews’ finest, slathered in gravy. It’s filling and warming which is the main thing. I order tea and get a gallon of iced sweet stuff. Beverages of all sorts are definitely a problem.

We deviated from the guide book route today . Instead of heading for Damascus we stayed on the main road which saved us ten miles and more importantly will save us about 5 miles of tomorrow’s trip which looks a real nasty one. It means that we are staying the night in Glade Spring which sounds more like an air freshener than a town. When we got here it seemed to be made up of a couple of garages, a factory and two motels, but there was an Italian restaurant right next door to ours, so it was fine by me. We got here at 2.15. An early finish was really welcome as the temperature continued to drop.

The owner, Ken, was Indian and I asked him about the high number of Asian run motels. It turns out that 60-70% of budget motels in the US are run by people from India, It apparently started about 40 years ago with one family, the Patels, and has continued to develop. Ken was born in Bombay (he called it Bombay) and lived there till he was 15. He came to the states in 1986 on a green card and became a citizen after 5 years. .He still visits Bombay from time to time but Virginia is now definitely home.

He asked me what I thought about the Health Care Bill being passed. I knew it was going to be the wrong answer but I told him that I thought it was wonderful news. He was very diplomatic and said that we would see.

Snow began to fall shortly after we got in and continued all evening. A bit depressing

The Italian restaurant turned out to be a no-alcohol joint, not even “Bring your own.” It was going to have to be wine in the motel room again. A little more depressing

The garage didn’t sell wine. Oh how we laughed.

Fried peppers and mushrooms, spaghetti and meatballs and a cup of tea (hot) then back home with a six pack of Newcastle Brown and a bar of Hershey fruit and nut.

So we have the steepest climb of the whole trip tomorrow then two very long days on a busy, coal-truck bearing road .

And it’s snowing.

“These are the times that try men’s souls”