June 3rd – Mineral, VA to Charlottesville, VA

Mileage: 65 ish
Terrain: Rolling to hilly
Temperature: 80 ish degrees
OMG, there is sooo much to write about and not enough time!! It is now 10:15 and I have finally found time and internet to write the blog for today and post yesterday’s blog. So this morning I got up around 6:45 am and didn’t leave until about 7:40 am. We had 50 miles until Charlottesville and were informed to be there by 1:30 in order to get to the James Q. Miller MS clinic. It was very hard for me to get out of bed this morning as the firehouse last night was located right by a railroad track and there were about 3 trains that went through. However, in between trains I managed to sleep well. I thought that there was an earth quake going on as the trains went through and the ground shook!! The ride was beautiful country side and pastures! I road along as I munched on combos and fig newtons out of my handlebar bag. On a trip like this you need to eat mass amounts of food b/c you are so rapidly burning calories, it really sucks to have to force feed yourself at times however, it is necessary or you will do what they call and bonk and be completely energy depleted and it is really hard to come out of a bonk. Basically if you are hungry you should have eaten an hour ago and that means it is going to take some time to regain energy eaten by food. We were so happy that we didn’t get lost today it was relieving! We are following bike rout 76 which has been marked a lot better. So we are getting closer to the mountains so that means we are starting to do a lot more climbing……..ahhhh. Oh yeah for anyone who wants to follow us on twitter you can follow us @transAm 2011 this is how we communicate out on the road for example if a road is closed or if there is a chasing dog along the way. It also sends us a text b/c there are areas were we will not have very good service. So once we got into Charlottesville we grabbed some food, Charlottesville is such a nice town, so much to see there!! After we ate we all road to the MS clinic all together and did a group entrance and listened to speakers etc and toured the clinic. It was very inspirational!! We then stopped at a bike shop where I picked up a special chain link that you can repair your chain with if you were to break it. Lets just hope that doesn’t happen!! After that we road about 15 ish miles to one of our fellow riders sisters house where we were able to get showers and camp. It is actually located along the route and is outside of Charlottesville in a small town called White Hall. They had dinner for us here, lasagna, chicken, salad, ice cream and lots more!! They are even making breakfast for us in the morning which we are going to need LOTS of calories due to a HUGE climb tomorrow. So her parents shuttled some of us to their house about a mile or so down the road for showers. Her parents house was beautiful here in the country side of Virginia. We drove through a winding gravel road about a mile and then crossed over a river and there were cattle grazing everywhere around the house. Here I was able to get a wonderful shower. It reminded me of a vacation cabin it was so cozy and nice up in the hills!! So tomorrow we are staying in vesuvius which is a huge climb. On the maps they give us they have a chart with the elevation and it is a HUGE spike in the chart. The other day I was talking to one of our guides Pepper about it and he said on this climb you will easily burn 10,000 calories. The descent sounds AWESOME and last year many people hit in the 50 mph range. I have to say that the trip so far has been an AMAZING experience and they say its only going to get better. There is so much we are seeing and doing!! Well that’s all for tonight I am exhausted and its 10:38 and I am getting up at 6:00 am. Nite!!