Day 81, Atkins to Dublin, VA

Miles – 50

Miles From Start/To Finish – 3,846/385

Ave Riding Speed – 3-31 mph

Hours Start to Finish – 7

Weather – Partly Cloudy and 88

Kim and I did not set our alarms for this morning and got up at 6:30am. Kim walked to the lobby to get coffee and came back with our “bag Lunch” breakfast. We nibbled on the yogurt and got ready to move out. We were heading northeast on Hwy 11 right out of the Comfort Inn parking lot at 8:30am.

We had roughly 50-miles to cover and we tried not to push ourselves today. Both of us are feeling pretty sluggish and looking forward to making it to Troutville tomorrow for a rest day and where we can take a look and plan out the remaining days of the adventure.

We rode 20-mies into Wytheville (pronounced with ville) and stopped at a grocery store for some cold water as we decided not to fill our 4 of our insulated water bottles to reduce weight. As I was standing outside watching our bikes and older man with a long gray beard asked me which way the wind is taking us today. I told him we were heading for Dublin. He was a returned career Navy man and said he’s sailed all over the world. Once I told him We were from Minnesota he said he goes to a specialist in Minnesota for a foot issue that started when he was in the Navy when his ship was on fire back in the mid-70’s. I never did get his name. I shook his hand and thanked him for his service to our country. He wished us a safe journey and we rode out.

We hooked back up with the TransAmerica trail in Wytheville today!

For the most part our route today ran parallel to Interstate 81. At one point I could see someone walking on our side of the highway up ahead. As we got closer it looked like someone was very tall. When we even closer I saw a man carry a cross. Soon I had clarity it what I was seeing. It looked to be a man in his late 20’s with a backpack strapped on and carrying an 8-foot high cross made of rain-gutter down spouts material. I said hi as we passed and he said “He is surely coming, isn’t he?” I said, “he sure is.” As we continued down the road, I had this feeling that I should have stopped and found out more about his story.

About 38-miles into our ride there was a business along the road called New River Sports and we stopped in to see if they had a tire pump. Last time we had 75 lbs. of pressure was back in Lancaster, KY. While we were leaning our bikes against the building an elderly man walked up and asked about our adventure. He then commented that about a week ago he saw a man walking along the highway carrying a cross. We said, “oh my gosh, we saw him today.” He then said that he again passed the man the following day. He said he just had to find out more about this person and turned his car around and stopped to talk with the man and asked him what he was up to. The man carrying the cross said he was on a mission to save the gentiles. When asked where he started from, he said he started in Delaware 9-years ago. Amazing! The older gentleman wished us safe travels and we went on our way.

The remainder of the ride had a little more climbing and we had to do some short walks uphill, but it was all manageable. Funny that we our day ended with a climb up to our hotel, the Quality Inn, where we arrived at 3:30pm.

We checked in and rolled our bikes through the hallway on the first floor to our room. The front desk clerk said they had coin-operated laundry machines, so we gathered all our dirty clothes from the last five days of road grime and sweat and Kim put in a load. After that we cleaned up, put our load of clean clothes in the dryer and walked across the parking lot to the Mexican restaurant that was recommended by the front desk clerk.

The server told us to grab a seat and he would be with us. I immediately had a feeling that this was not going to go well as it looked like he was the only server. After a bit the server brought us menus along with some chips and salsa and we decided we’d have a beer. After he delivered the beers that was the last time we saw him as he shied away from making any eye contact with most of the tables around us. We were probably there for 30-minutes and decided we’d leave cash for the beers and walk to a fast-food joint down the street and left.

The circus continued as we walked down the hill to the main drag and found we had to walk the highway about 3-blocks back to the Bojangles entrance and then walk up that hill to find their lobby was closed. We thought about walking through the drive-thru and decided against it. We walked down the hill to the convenience store which had a Subway inside it. That was closed. So we walked back up the hill to our hotel and thought maybe we just weren’t meant to eat today and call it a day.

Kim googled area pizza joints and found one that delivered. When it was delivered the driver gave Kim the wrong pizza. Kim called the driver and said you gave us the wrong pizza. A few minutes later he returned and delivered our pizza. After the long wait for something to eat, it went down pretty well.

The picture is an entrance to the interstate we went down accidently and had to walk our bikes back to the highway and figure out a new route. We also traveled down the wrong road alongside of the freeway to a dead-end once today burning a couple miles, which is very annoying.