June 7-9th – Blacksburg, VA to Rural Retreat, VA to Rosedale, VA

Mileage: 85 ish miles, 80 ish miles
Terrain: Hilly
Temperature: 90 ish degrees
On June 7th there was a rest day and we went to two different houses and did yard makeovers. The one house was like a jungle and there were many overgrown trees and LOTS of poison ivy. I now itch everywhere and am not sure if I am developing poison ivy or otherwise I have tons of big bites. So then on the night of the 7th we grilled out at Mason’s house and got a good night sleep!! On the morning of the 8th we got up and were on the road to Rural Retreat at 8:00 am. We road about 40ish miles and then stopped in Wytheville at a truck stop and ate at a buffet! I think that they must have lost money on me due to me eating sooo much!! I also had a new record of top speeds coming out of Blacksburg of 46.6 mph, however, the top speed of one of the guys in the group was 57 mph. One we had lunch we laid under a shade tree and took a nap. After the nap we decided to move on to Rural Retreat where we stayed at a camp for the night. Needless to say it was somewhat of an eventful ride when we got rained on and one of the guys we were riding with had his chain and derailleur get caught up in his wheel  Finally we got to the camp and it was back a thick gravel road that was 1.6 miles long so the two vans had to shuttle us to the camp. It reminded me of something like the parent trap camp but not as nice. However, they did have showers and a shelter for us to set up our tents under so that we could stay dry!! I did however wake up in the middle of the night and hear a coyote howling, kind of scary!! We were tucked back in the middle of the mountains in the middle of nowhere and to top it off there was no cell phone service whatsoever!! It was a very long but fun riding day. We have all kind of taken the approach that there is no hurry to get to camp because the trailer usually is bringing up the rear so you would have to sit at camp with nothing to do.
So on the morning of the 9th we woke up and started our journey to Rosedale, VA. We rode about 40 miles to Damascus where our guide Pepper owns Sundog Outfitters and we got to shop and see where he works. We then sat down and ate at a pizza place for lunch and went to the grocery. They parked the van and trailer outside of the grocery so that we could stock up due to not many places to get food for the next few days. We then started on our way to Rosedale from Damascus and about 5 miles out started getting hailed on so we pulled over onto some ones porch and stood around for about 20 minutes until the rain started to subside. About 1 mile down the road we came to a road block, there was a huge tree down and we took some pictures and then threw our bikes over the trunk and kept moving on. On our way to Rosedale we came up to a snapping turtle in the middle of the road and felt that we needed to rescue it and move it to the ditch, so we took some pictures, moved it to the ditch and kept on. So we were warned that about 10 miles from Rosedale there is a huge climb that is 3.5 miles long called Hayters Gap. We stopped at the bottom filled up with water and started our ascent. It wasn’t as bad as what was anticipated. Got to the top and the van and trailer were there with others cheering us on!! Decided to go for the descent and get to the United Methodist Church where we are staying for the night. It was a very eventful day with lots of rain!! Well I am exhausted so I am going to get cleaned up, no showers tonight, and get to bed!! Tomorrow should be a good day with a little bit less mileage at somewhere around 50 miles and we are staying at Breaks, VA which is the border of the VA and KY border! I am excited to cross the border it will feel like we are making progress!!