Trailing Dreams of America, 2005

                  ....PJClements & American Journeys

 

Trailing Dreams of America:  Conversations down the road

 

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* Chapel Talk to Peddie Students, September 19, 2005           

 

* Presentation to the Faculty, October 17, 2005

 

* Reports from the roads (originals via LiveJournal.)

 

 

 

Tuesday, March 29, Day 0

 

Less than 24 hours to Go Time! One more little test of the posting system via this cool little handheld Pocket PC from Dell (Axim X30 w/ a Bluetooth collapsible full size keyboard). My entire computer system, when folded up, is smaller than my copy of The Grapes of Wrath. Must continue errands to get ready to say farewell at Community Meeting (school assembly) tomorrow at 10.00 a.m. Whoo-Hoo!

-- PJClements

 

 

Wednesday, March 30, Day 1

 

43 miles, Peddie to Cinnaminson, NJ.

 

Well, this journey has begun. What a great beginning to the trip, and a good start to the spring term at Peddie, to leave from Community Meeting (our all school assembly) after addressing the kids and saying goodbye, and having them respond with a rousing sendoff from the steps of the theatre. Really cool too was a package of letters from the kids of Western Civ Studies class ("Read just one each night, Mr. Clements."), and a special cache of chocolate for the road. All of the kids' gestures were moving, the work of a rich community.

 

Special too was riding from Peddie to Crosswicks with Neal Hammer, a good friend and the father of two Peddie women, both Principio students. Neal and Lois Hammer making the time to participate in this little adventure and affirm again their special character, is humbling. However, what was most powerful of all was Melanie Clements, just her own self, being lovely, smiling, and free. Leaving her for all this time is daunting, and will probably crush me some depressed day down the road. But today her total gracious coolness felt like enough power for a couple thousand miles.

 

I had a terrific experience in the Burlington County Bike Center on Charleston Road in Willingboro. I pulled in because my headset was a bit loose (and my butt a bit sore), and owner Susan Nece and John, wrench extraordinaire, fixed me up in a flash with good bike repair, a nifty bike map of the Philly region, and some good conversation. I'll post their photo for sure!

 

Tomorrow I cross over into Philly and head toward Lancaster, following as much as I can the old Lancaster Road /Philadelphia Pike as traffic permits. I'll not post this first report until Thursday, maybe from some coffee joint near U. Penn.

 

Peddie people: thank you. You inspire me. Melanie: thanks beyond words. Friends and other family: everything's looking good. More later, folks, from further on down the road.

 

--PJClements

 

 

Thursday, March 31, Day 2

 

68 miles from Cinnaminson, NJ to Kinser, PA.

 

Easy up and out from the nameless motel smack up against busy Route 130, a beneath brow joint where I had to ask for hot water for the shower but the porno was furnished on Channel 2 unbidden. Pedaled down the old River Road through industrial riverside NJ, further on into Camden, down State Street far enough to ask directions and be glad it was morning. Pushed the bike up to the pedestrian crossing on the Ben Franklin Bridge, and enjoyed Philadelphia unfolding itself from high in the air at walking speed. Down into town, chatting with George Washington for a bit at Independence Hall, then across Walnut Street through town and on to UPenn.

 

I passed West Philadelphia High School on Walnut, and Overbrook High on Lancaster Avenue, spectacular statements both. Lancaster Avenue took me past Villanova University, Haverford School, where baseball and lacrosse team were warming up, and on past old wealth, some newer victories, commerce always, slowly out of the city and on to towns further on down the old road, Paoli, Malvern, Downington, Coatesville, Sadsbury.

 

Stayed the night at the Roamers' Retreat Campground, hurrying to beat dropping temperatures and the threat of rain. $27 for the tent site (steep but worth it) and $4.59 for dinner. Can't beat that. Off in the morning to Lancaster, York, Gettysburg, and wherever else I manage.

 

-- PJClements

 

Friday, April 1, Day 3

 

Kinser -> Gettysburg PA (77 miles / 188 total)

 

A sweet day, especially since I feared rain in the night. Woke up to 42 degrees, toasty in the tent, and got ready to roll. Pedaled through Paradise on the way to Lancaster along Highway 30. Lancaster is a handsome town, and quaint, yet a hub of explosive trucking activity. I stopped to watch police halt traffic to allow a wave of women to cross the highway for a quilters convention, 53 footers rumbling patiently, waiting to resume their missions.

 

Highway 30 gave way to 462 through York, then finally to a smaller road, 116 to Hanover and Gettysburg. The land has been rolling, sometimes quilted up by Amish, frequently smoothed by dairy farming. The land always seems hustled in some way: "Buy Here, Pay Here" used car places; old 18th c. Stone houses and milking barns along the road; farms and paper factories; row houses in towns. As I slide along, the scenes unfold at contemplative speed, appearing long enough to focus on and wonder, but then being replaced by something intriguing enough to change my focus. When I get off the old main roads, or when the density of "stuff" relaxes and the population declines, I'll wonder differently, and longer. Nonetheless, today included a bright morning redolent of both Amish farms and diesel power, and it ended in the gray rain of the battlegrounds at Gettysburg.

 

I looked up Grant Acker '01 at Gettysburg College, knowing that it was Friday evening of a senior's spring term. We met outside a fraternity house on the college main street, and caught up with our lives, families and friends. He's still Grant Acker, but older, bigger, stubbled, and with things to do before a May 15 graduation.

 

The campground where I had planned to stay refused me admission, saying I'd be flooded out by morning. I'm thus staying at a budget motel (killing my budget but much nicer than that place in Cinnaminson), and will figure out how far I can manage Saturday, and how. The weatherheads are talking about 2" of rain, temperatures in the 40s, and a slow storm. Maybe Blue Ridge Summit?

 

-- PJClements

 

Saturday, April 2, Day 4

 

Gettysburg -> Blue Ridge Summit (23 miles / 211 total)

 

Woke up in a hotel to rain, heavy rain, continued minute to minute worry about the Pope, and Weather Channel images of terrible, awful, flooding rain. I sat and wondered whether I should stay in G'burg, or head out. After the second round of weather channel reports, I realized that only disaster lurks on TV. Between radar images of regional rain, the weatherhead showed clips of flooding in Wayne, NJ and then a 1963 film of a Dallas tornado, F3, as a lead to a report that Tornado Alley is quiet. Forty year old black and white film ("Terrific film quality," he said.) of unspeakable destruction to inform us that everything is OK. With that, I checked out.

 

Rain was sluicing down the gutters up into Gettysburg town, and it didn't let up. In just a few minutes I was very wet, in a half hour I was soaked. The creeks were flooded and in low sections of 116 I had to move to the middle of  the road to avoid rising water. Two cherubs in an empty fruit stand promised a place to eat ahead in Fairfield. Mid day meal at the "Book and Table" diner, where I had a long gabble with proprietor Shelly Kellogg, and he 20 year old son Matt Fletcher and 25 daughter Sara Fletcher, both helping out Mom on Saturday in the diner. Good stories; more later.

 

Onward into Carroll Valley, and then up Route 16 to Blue Ridge Summit, a memorable climb. Lee led a retreating army up this road, and years later Chavon Sutton flopped on the ground at the top and exploded into tears, having pedaled to the top, the hardest things she'd ever done. I smiled at the memory. We ate whole pies with our fingers there. And Fernando got a haircut there too.

 

Warmed up and dried out at the laundromat while washing all I had. Talked with Rich De Luna across the street about his history in the area. Called Susie Miller Lloyd and secured permission to ride up to the "Mountain House." I camped on the porch of the lovely old retreat house, my tent stakes duct-taped to the porch deck, the wind howling up from the valley, snow swirling in the morning. Not a lot of miles today, but it was a full day nonetheless.

 

I carved a message to the Lloyd girls, leaving it inside the shutters of the porch window. Their gift of "Monster Dude," a snarling green plastic dinosaur toy, rides on my rear rack, facing backwards, guarding my rear. He's been doing a great job.

 

Sunday should be Waynesboro, Hagerstown, and then on down old Route 11 as far into Virginia as I can go. The wind and the cold may be influential today.

 

-- PJClements

 

 

Sunday, April 3, Day 5

 

Blue Ridge Summit -> Martinsburg WV (42 miles / 253 total)

 

Woke up on the porch, glad not to have been blown away by the gale howling up from Waynesboro. 35 degrees and snow squalls as I packed and headed down the mountain to Rousersville and the valley. The wind was so strong I pedaled the downhills. Grrrr. Had a bite to eat out of the wind in a motel dining room, sharing it with a stream of wedding guests saying goodbye and heading off on a compass of trips home. The bride and groom took their time visiting once again with aunts and cousins and friends from the past.

 

Headed south towards Hagerstown trying to hide from the south wind, cold and grey. Maryland appeared and the winds didn't change. Just outside Hagerstown I hooked up with Route 11, my road for the next several hundred miles. I stopped for some celebratory coffee, and was chatted up by an old lady at the next table. "If you're headed west, don't go to Frostburg. It's much colder there." Thanks, I'll follow 11 south and avoid Frostburg. "I was born in Frostburg and not until I went to work in Baltimore, during the war, did I realize how cold it is in Frostburg. Where are you from." New Jersey. "It's much warmer there. Where you headed." I'm heading south down 11. "Well don't go to Frostburg. It's much colder there."

 

I headed south and crossed into West Virginia. The wind was just too brutal, so my goal of hitting Virginia and riding in four states in one day disappeared. A cheapo motel appeared outside Martinsburg, and I dived in out of the cold and wind, far away from Frostburg.

 

-- PJClements

 

 

 

Monday April 4, Day 6

 

Martinsburg WV -> Edinburg VA (60 miles / 313 total)

 

42 and windy, but clearing and sunny.

 

Rolling down 11 it was clear I was still on a road of commerce, but the land was softening up and some of the farms were larger and had been once more substantial and prosperous. The road also sprouted Civil War battle signs, markers just too wordy to read while pedaling, but neatly placed just often enough to let me unsaddle myself for a moment. Winchester appeared, a town that switched hands some dozen times during the War, and breakfast beckoned. A county town, Winchester had several diners surrounding the courthouse and lawyers' row. I joined the conversation at the Piccadilly Grill (corner of Piccadilly and Cameron), a fifteen stool storefront breakfast joint. Taking a seat out of the banter, I watched "Chuck," Phyllis Pyne (waitress), and Gary Reedy (short order cook, owner, and Phyllis's brother) sass back and forth, first about Chuck's order and why he couldn't make up his mind, or speak up, and why Gary's hearing was not what it once was. After these stylized preliminaries, Gary asked whether Chuck's church had done anything Sunday in honor of the Pope. There followed a half hour of back and forth about priests who smoke cigarettes and drink beer, what a holy man the Pope was no matter what religion, points on Catholics' worship Mary, the cost of the Pentecostal church we just bought, wonder that the Pope was Polish, a couple of theological clarifications, and then more religious argument. Had I not known what old friends these folks were, and how comfortable they were letting a stranger into the fray, I'd have thought they were at odds. "But that's your right to believe that!" "It sure is, thank God." Chuck, a pentecostal "holy roller" was rightfully proud of his church community, growing from 60 members a few years ago to 176 this week. Gary, both a Baptist and Catholic (try that in NYC), was a terrific gentle needler, and a kind man. "Chuck" declined to have his picture taken (I later learned he's in the security business) with his partner in argument, but picked up my check quietly on his way out. More on this exchange later.

 

South of Strasburg, Route 11, The Valley Pike, turned great. Rolling through rich farmland, the Blue Ridge knifes along on my left, the next ridge further to the west on my right, both clearly focusing me and the road up the valley.

 

The wind picked up again in the afternoon, and I was tuckered out as the sun fell. In Edinburg, far short of any campgrounds I had on my maps, there appeared a "Creekside Camping" sign. I was saved. Hilda Arnaud welcomed me to a lovely campsite, just upstream from "The Hatch, a B & B for Fly Fishermen." This  77 year old woman with an explosion of curly grey hair has her own story. More on her later. I'm off on Tuesday, aiming through New Markey, Harrisonburg, and Staunton, a good ride up the "Valley of the Shadow."

 

-- PJClements

 

 

Tuesday April 5, Day 7

 

Edinburg VA -> Mint Springs VA (71 miles / 385 total)

 

Today was a day of riding. The sun came out and the air was still in the morning, and the riding was sometimes sublime. Through New Market the Massanutten mountains were a steady ridge edge on my left. Soon the valley opened up wider and the quiet special road was lost to greater commerce. Harrisonburg and later Staunton were important regional towns full of people and manufacture. In some ways they were much like Lancaster and Chambersburg, important valley towns. No surprise that Ted Ayers at U.Va. matched Chambersburg and Staunton for his Valley of the Shadow project on 1850s America.

 

But back to Hilda Arnaud from the Creekside Campground in the lovely town of Edinburg. What follows is a reconstruction, but I think it's fair. After first conversations and pleasantries and questions about her family, I asked her about her dream of America. In a steady stream she said, "My husband Joe, he has diabetes but moves around well, getting the exercise he needs -- he'll be up early turning off the lights if you want to talk to him in the morning -- he and I are the camp hosts here. He's from an island off Normandy (?--PJC), and his people there go way back. We married, both second timers. I'm 77, but six months older. Before he and I married I'd only ever been to other counties here in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, but now we've traveled in that RV and I've been in all 50 states now, Hawaii and Alaska on a cruise. Wherever we went we always visited the historicals. We have two sons. John is a cheft over in Luray. He's doing real well. Has a bakery, only bakery in Luray, and he's doing just fine. Was a lighting designer before that, worked for Marie Osmond and (PJC forgets name), you know, traveling and making them look beautiful on stage. But he was tired of the road and always loved to cook, so he became a cheft. Our other son, Chuck, he got the calling to be a minister, and he's doing just fine too, has a church over in ????? Kentucky, and also another smaller one in ????? too. We sold the big farm and bought a smaller place, and this RV, Joe and I, and we said, "Here's your inheritance!" So John went to cooking school, Chuck took to ministering and started his church, and we traveled to all the states. So there you are. That's our story and my answer to your question about America."

 

--PJClements

 

 

Wednesday April 6, Day 8

 

Mint Springs VA -> Natural Bridge Station (52 miles / 437 total)

 

The valley started to narrow up again, the rich Virginia land rolled by. The big highway over the Blue Ridge from Charlottesville joined the valley, and I smiled as I saw the turnoff Peter Clements and I made five years ago coming north on 11 as we went over the mountain at Stuart's Draft. Greenville and Steeles Tavern and Fairfield and Bustleburg rolled by, towns named by hope or function. Lexington soon arose, and I poked around the juxtaposition of the VMI fortress and the classically columned W&L campus. The Valley Pike (Route 11) is know here as Lee-Jackson highway, two heroes joined yet again, but how odd that Jackson's name resonates at VMI with one look, and Lee in the chapel at W&L, a couple hundred yards apart.

 

At the Black Dog Café in Lexington I met and chatted with Greg and Ginny, new proprietors of this terrific new enterprise (great gumbo, comfortable conversation, free wireless). Married 27 years, they lived for the past couple of decades in Dallas, working as a telecom engineer and schoolteacher. With both children out of the house and onto college and lives beyond, "our responsibilities for the children were over and it was time to move on to our dreams. We started to look about for what else to do in life. We had always talked of having our own business, and we wanted to live in a small city... So here we are. Our dream of America? It's happening right here. We worry about if we have enough money to pay the bills. That's all. Not whether we have enough for a fancy new car. And we are able to take time and have these interactions, to speak with people who come in off the street. Just yesterday there was a family from England here, visiting the college, and we talked with them. And this (pointing to me, suggesting today's new story that walked in off the street). Making a living is important, but we've done our bit for our family. My personal dream isn't national in scope, but I would wish that everyone had the time to be able

to meet and know other people, even if they don't see them again."

 

-- PJClements

 

 

Thursday April 7, Day 9

 

Natural Bridge Station -> Salem (57 miles / 493 total)

 

Yesterday was supposed to be my rest day, but the weather was too fine to lie about. This morning broke nice too, and I still have hopes of making it all the way down the valley to get to Hiltons VA by Saturday night, and listen to the music at the A.P. Carter Family.

 

A three mile climb loomed from the campground back up to US 11 at Natural Bridge. Halfway up from my James River campsite I stopped at the Rockbridge General Store to rest and find some coffee. There was no coffee for sale, but owner Larry Herndon greeted me and then swept me back into his office for a cup from his own pot. We sat and talked about his life while sitting in easy chairs, next to a winter stove, Larry's big easy chair before a wall of carefully collected baseball caps. A baseball and football player in high school, he left northern Virginia to head to Blacksburg, foregoing a call from the Orioles to go to college, playing football instead at Virginia Tech. After work in the family cattle business, and some government work near Washington, Larry and his wife left the suburban life before their kids hit school to head to where they were more in control of their lives. "My wife went back to school and now teaches. I've worked in both the cattle and construction business, and then jumped at the opportunity to buy this place. We have a good community here that supports the store, and we're part of the community. There is a difference between making a living and making a life."

 

Rain began to fall in the afternoon, and what started as a lovely day turned into work. The valley kept climbing, and the Lee Highway rolled on and up into Buchanan and on to Roanoke. Just before the Hollins College campus Tinker Creek crosses the highway, and I enjoyed remembering Annie Dillard's book and some of the Principiates' fine experience with it. Just three days before Megan James alluded to it in a weblog message.

 

By Roanoke the rain was getting nasty and dangerous, so I jumped into a $40 motel, and watched film from the Vatican on the Pope's funeral. Lovely though the coverage is, you'd thought we lived in a Catholic country with cultural ministry running the networks. Steroids one week; Shiavo the next; now the Pope. Next week something else new for the moment.

 

Tomorrow, a rest day for sure.

 

--PJClements

 

 

 

 

Friday April 8, Day 10

 

Salem -> Dublin VA (41.05 miles / 540 total)

 

My goal today was rest, and I got some, but now how I planned.

 

I dawdled and stretched in the morning, feeling worn a bit but evenly fatigued all over my body, a good sign. If one part was more sore than another, or if there were hotspots in my hands, or left foot, or on my butt, I'd be in big trouble. But not so. The morning was grim, and my first goal was to get out, spin myself loose and fined the first campsite to spend the day and rest.

 

Christiansburg looked like a good goal, ten miles or so, and a place for food, rest, and maybe a wireless zone. I had forgotten Christiansburg lies atop a rise in the whole valley, a "big climb" that cross country riders on the Transamerica Trail all discuss. I'd been down that hill five years ago with Peter Clements, but it's easy to forget downhills. This was a three mile climb and I was halfway up before I realized that this was "that" hill. So up I spun, slowly moving but pedaling fast and loose. I exploded in sweat but felt great at the top. I was loose and warm, and happy too, climbing a challenge that wasn't the challenge I feared, for I was just smoothing along in the moment.

 

Found a café in Radnor and talked with a MFA student in poetry at Hollins, discussing the missing Tinker Creek signs. She had named her dog for Annie Dillard's husband.

 

I got some bad directions to the Claytor Lake State Park, directions that added some ten miles to my day but introduced me to the "The Wilderness Road" a day early, a great delight. Getting a taste of the oldest of the old roads was terrific. No traffic, built for muscle powered traffic and thus swervy and rolling amongst these hills, a guarded by some proud dogs.

 

Long downhill and detour to the Claytor Lake State Park Campsite, but a fine site. A family setting up a full tilt camper site, complete with monster campfire, comfy dog, and ten year old boy, asked me over the share the fire's heat. After the usual explanation of my journey, the boy's first response was "You'll meet some fine people on your trip. The nicest will be in Kansas." I disappointed him for a moment with the news that I'd probably not hit Kansas. "Then Oklahoma. If you ride through Oklahoman, you'll meet the nicest people there." I thanked him for his prediction, not sure how it could be.

 

-- PJClements

 

Saturday April 9, Day 11

 

Dublin VA -> Marion VA (70.80 miles / 611 total)

 

A crisp, clear and terrific morning. I broke camp, found some truckstop coffee at an I-81 interchange, and spun off on the "New Bern Road," the local name for the Wilderness Trail. In New Bern I stopped at the Wilderness Road Regional Museum, but they weren't open that early. I'd been there before, so it was nice to wander the old houses on this old section of road. The whole village is 18th and 19th c. Log and frame houses, and it's just there along the road, left alone by the Wilderness Road being replaced by the Lee Highway, Route 11, and recently I-81. An ancient red-haired dog wandered across the road to say hello, three legs working fine, the fourth a bit iffy. His delight in visitors was not iffy, for after an obligatory circle and smell, he flopped down next to the road for a belly rub and nap. He was still there snoozing in the morning sun when I later rolled out of his town.

 

A few more miles on the Wilderness Road and on Adventure Cycling's original "Transamerica Trail," laid out and first ridden in 1976 as part of the "Bikecentennial," and I was headed for Marion, Virginia, home of the "Hungry Mother State Park" and campground, a memory for Peter Clements and me, and for everyone on 2004's "Trail of Tears" bicycle trip. Joe Clark's flip flop is still lost on the creek bottom there. Camping there was a treat. Virginia's State Parks are said to be the nation's best, and I can't disagree, and this is the best of the four or five I've visited. Built in 1936 as part of FDR's CCC works program, it is set in a spectacular creek valley, with a knife edge of mountains at its back. It was quiet and just right cold on the top of a ridge there, the night quiet except for the long distant and echoing midnight train whistles from a couple valleys over.

 

However, the evening was powered by a long visit with the Condra family, of Marion, who had come out to camp for the weekend. David and Lisa had the car camping operation down, unloading all the gear they needed for themselves and their two daughters, Elisabeth (3rd grade) and Hayley (four years old). They love the outdoor life, and escape even the four miles from home to the park every chance they get. Elisabeth has been camping "since I can remember," even doing primitive camping along the trail with her folks when she was much smaller. Outdoorsmen all, Elisabeth has even helped skin deer, spending some time explaining anatomy to me, focusing on the esophagus. I was very impressed. David and Lisa left Virginia Beach to move to Marion, where David's mother, recently widowed and ill, lives, when Elisabeth came home one day "talking about what 9 year olds shouldn't know about." David left a higher paying job to come to Marion, but wouldn't trade it for the world. They head out on weekends, see the kids' grandma, and pick off pieces of the Appalachian Trail when they can. Their gear was grizzled and worn with good use, and David's hospitality included a cold drink. "You got a cooler with you on that bike, or can I offer you something cold?" was his opening. Mmmmm. The girls ran off to play with the dogs of another campers, a couple who'd come to hike and tire out their hounds, and I accepted the Condras' hospitality and sat a while and talked our of our lives and families. Lovely people and a lovely evening.

 

As I left I left early Sunday morning, David had a fire going and a pot of camp coffee steaming. As the sun broke into the trees and began to warm the frost, and as his girls slept on, David poured me some strong coffee, flavored with grounds and smoke and all the fires that had boiled that pot before, a solid morning.

 

--PJClements

 

Sunday April 10 , Day 12

 

Marion VA -> Bristol TN (57.88 m / 669 total)

 

Old 11 from Marion to Chilhowie was a quiet treat on a Sunday morning, though there was a flurry of traffic just before 10 a.m. and services down the road. I stopped to eat and do laundry in Chilhowie (laundromats do the trick, Harry Holcombe, and keep me clothed just fine.) One woman doing chores in the laundromat: "I came here from Cincinnati, divorced. My brothers said it was much better place for kids than Ohio. When they were little it was true. But now I don't know. It's hard for kids everywhere, not just here, what with all the troubles. Round here the meth labs are real trouble. Not much to do, 'cept sit and try to make a few dollars, or whatever, with meth or drugs. Not much for young people to do. More jobs going out than coming in, and not much work anyway. Want to read some of this newspaper? Not much news, not that's good anyway."

 

The road south took me through my favorite town so far, Abingdon, Virginia. The old part of town has kept its strength steadily. Early settlement evidence remains (let's not forget pioneer settlement, the French and Indian Wars, folks. The Civil War was not the first fighting down most of this valley), and all the early 19th c. buildings remain in good repair, and some later good luck still works, like Mary Washington College, now an Inn, and the Barter Theatre.

 

Outside of town I broke down and pulled in for a DQ malt and met a couple of veteran teachers from Marion, sneaking down the highway for a DQ and a TCBY frozen yogurt. These two lovely women, one retired from 4th grade and the other with two years left before she retired from teaching 2nd grade, and I chatted for a while about teaching, the often insuperable challenges, environmental and parental, some kids face, and their desire to travel more. Australia beckons for one, as soon as her next two years conclude, and dreams of more travel lingers for the other, though recently widowed, she struggled to imagine big trips alone. "Wait two years, and we'll go to Australia together, and maybe New Zealand too!" Sounds like a plan.

 

A few miles left to Bristol and a cheap room (no camping anywhere near). From Bristol I leave the arterial Valley Pike / Wilderness Road / Lee Highway / Route 11 / I-81 overlay and head straight west, just above the Tennessee border, heading to Gate City (The A.P. Carter Museum) and then the Cumberland Gap. One hundred miles across the ridges now. I'll be out of wireless range for a while I suspect. Ciao!

 

-- PJClements

 

 

Monday April 11 , Day 13

 

Bristol VA/TN -> Duffield VA (48 mi / 717 total)

 

What was I thinking? Rip off plenty of 50 plus mile days, usually 75 or so when the weather was good and conditions fine, and schmooze around America chatting? These mountains just kicked my butt. I have no brains. What was I thinking?

 

Today started off as lovely as can be. For the past couple of hundred miles I've been following the major artery down Virginia. Today, I changed course, heading due west, knowing I'd need to cross some of the ridges I'd been paralleling since Blue Ridge Summit, PA. Crossing I-81 and leaving behind all the interchange commerce and cell phone towers of the highway, I headed west on Route 58 toward Gate City. The road was hilly, and every half hour or so I'd struggle up and over a ridge, but in lovely sunlight, exploding spring, and every lovely country delight a cyclist enjoys: only the local traffic of farm pickups, one hand greetings from the top of the steering wheel, periodic sweeping downhills on the backsides of ridges, nonchalant cows to chat with. From Bristol to Gate City on 58 was a cyclist's dream, challenging, but terrific.

 

After passing through the Moccasin Gap in Gate City, all hell broke loose. Joining 58 from the south, squeezed through the gap to join me, was heavy duty industrial traffic headed north on Route 23 out of Kingsport. The ridges had focused all motion onto one highway, and the land tightened the focus into a four lane road without shoulders. The old wilderness road had not been paralleled with a new highway. There was no room. There was one road, a modern artery. With 53 footers ripping by, I road the next 25 miles toward Duffield on the three inch edge of the road, listening and watching for the pulses of vehicles clusters coming up behind. The highway climbed and then descended (scarier!) three major ridges between Weber City and Duffield, and on the climbs I spent  most of my time in the gravel shoulder, doing 7 or 8 milers and hour. The drivers were all great, but there's no arguing physics with loaded trucks, either as they fly to carry momentum into the rising climb, or as they try and manage their mass on the twisting descents. The sign for Natural Tunnel State Park could not have appeared fast enough. I busted it all day, and made just 45 miles down the road.

 

For all the load, dangerous, and fretful work of the afternoon, the evening, like the morning, was idyllic. My campsite was atop a peak in a convoluted maze of limestone capped hilltops and severe creek chasms. I pushed my bike a couple of hundred feet above the Natural Tunnel of this region, a tunnel that still carried coal train traffic. and camped alone at the top of the State Park. Distant dogs echoed up a valley on one side, and twice in the night the train whistles worked their way down a valley on the other side. In the morning I could see in the distance the long ridge of the Cumberlands.

 

-- PJClements

 

Wednesday April 13, Day 15

 

Jonesville VA -> Cumberland Cap TN (41 mi / 786 total)

 

Again, the day had no single character, but two distinct parts. The morning ride was stunning and lovely. The Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail was no longer buried beneath heavy truck traffic, and the next 30 miles were old road lovely. The sun eventually took the wet sharpness out of the air, and the quiet country road was terrific. From Jonesville I traveled County roads 662, 661, 885, and 667, the original Wilderness Trail in this long final valley, and enjoyed the rich farmland along the Powell River. On one smaller ridge climb, just beyond the remains of the 1775 "Priest's Fort," an outpost on the edge of the wilderness, I met a woman walking along the road, a Norwegian lady who lived in the valley with her long retired husband. She asked me if I'd talked to any of "the originals," aiming me to the Sunoco station in the next town of Rose Hill. "That's where the originals sit and drink coffee and talk about whatever they talk about. They're sometimes hard to understand." Originals.

 

The old Road and the new highway again converged and then melted together, but in this final valley there was room for a nice shoulder, and little traffic. For ten more miles the cliffs of the Cumberland Mountain escarpment rose on my right, a six hundred miles long wall topped with gathering rain clouds in the afternoon. The valley floor I was riding began a long, steady climb, as did the Cumberland Mountain wall, but it felt as though the ridges, walls, and valleys were all tightening, focusing together.

 

Three miles before the Gap itself, The Cumberland Gap National Historic Park campground entrance appeared, and as I pulled in, the rains began again. I pulled hard up the long hill to an empty campground, found a site with good drainage, and set up camp fast. At four in the afternoon, I finally scrambled into my tiny tent, soaked in the heavy rain, and did not emerge until the morning. I eventually dried myself warm, and fell asleep excited that tomorrow I would somehow cross the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky.

 

However, I'd learned that the only road to the other side is modern Highway 25E, which follows a tunnel beneath the Gap. No wonder I'd not read about other cyclists crossing this Gap. But I'd come all this way, the entire path

settlers came, all under my own power. No way I would cross the Gap through a tunnel, or in a pickup truck.

 

-- PJClements

 

 

Thursday April 14 , Day 16

 

Cumberland Gap TN -> Middlesboro KY (15 mi / 800 total)

 

Today turned out to be an extraordinary day, ridiculously full of happy and unexpected turns, all improbable because it began so lousy.

 

I pulled myself from a warm and dry cocoon into the wet chill of 40 degrees on the mountaintop campsite, stowed a soaked tent, put on soggy shoes, and began the day to cross the Cumberland Gap. After a chilling downhill to the highway, and then a busting climb out of the fog into the sun of a warming mountain day, I headed vaguely toward the tunnel. However, I veered back down and into the village of Cumberland Gap to dry out, find a place to do laundry, and see if there was some way to pedal over the gap and avoid the tunnel. And I was hungry.

 

In Sue Webb's Country Kitchen I found more than what I sought. I had a long talk about the region, town, and hopes with Joe Webb (long time resident of Cumberland Gap) and waitresses Patsy Johnson (originally from Kentucky) and Lorraine Nieto (14 years here since California). They filled orders, wrote up tickets, and talked with everyone on the run while I sat at the counter resuming the conversations when they returned. Fearful of a growing police state ("Did you know that right here in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia, the police can run roadblocks and searches, for no reason? Six dollar an hou