Travel Inn Motel, Wytheville 05.15 Monday 22^nd March (Day 8)

Bit of a Groundhog day yesterday. Another fifty miles in about six hours. Countryside a little more English looking and noticeably less prosperous. Fair number of hills but only one real bugger. Warm and sunny until just before the end when the rain came. Not a problem but it looks a bit dodgy today. Makes you realise how lucky we have been so far. My odometer tells me I did over 30 mph downhill for the first time. Glad I didn’t realise it at the time or I would have been terrified. Bowden of course, cruises along in the low 40s with his hands behind his head and his feet on the handlebars.

We were out at 07.15. Back to Famous Anthony’s for breakfast. Oat meal and toast . Surrounded by Sunday golfers tucking into their pre-match omelettes and corned beef hash. Wonder if Tiger Woods has this. A lot of people seem to have a plate of apples in syrup with their fried breakfasts. Then to the supermarket to buy stuff for lunch in case we didn’t find anywhere open. Gatorade, dried cranberries and Snickers bars (recommended in the guide)

Once on the road we make steady progress. 11 mph for the first couple of hours which is fairly good going, over moderately gentle hills, Everywhere very quiet.

I remark to Mike that I might start wearing an extra pair of padded undershorts as my bum was feeling a bit tender after 6 days on the road. He advises putting them on as soon as possible – at the lunchtime stop:

“ I was out cycling with a bloke once; he said he had the same problem. Middle of the afternoon.... the whole left side of his arse fell off. “

I have another 3600 miles of this.

A long steep climb just after the town of Pulaski, named after a Polish count, gives us a wonderful view over Drapers Valley below. Just before lunch we pass a walker striding along. He gives us a wave and we later meet up with him in the diner. His name is Richard and he comes from Chiswick. Walking across the USA, following the historical development of the states. Doing it with his girlfriend who has just gone to Cape Town for a wedding and will be back in a week or so. They reckon on doing it in about six months. Would I prefer to walk rather than cycle? Not sure. As we pass him later, with the clouds gathering overhead, I decide that I probably wouldn’t.

Lunch is chilli soup and a jacket potato and is just what is needed. We make reasonable time afterwards and get to Wytheville by 4. The motel is just outside town, as they always are. And the owner - of Asian origin, like most of the ones we have met so far – tells us that Wytheville is a “church-going community “- so there won’t be many places open to eat. We end up having burgers , jacket potatoes and Dr. Pepper in a Wendy place and then head back to our room with a bottle of wine from the gas station opposite. This was NOT in the brochure.

I sit up for a while, writing some e-mails and drinking red wine for a paper cup while Mike is tucked up in bed with a Patrick O Brien. See what the “church-going community” make of that