4/30/01
I got up fairly early and decided to repack my panniers, since my previous packing scheme situated my most important items in the hardest-to-reach places. In short, I'm not that bright. Once packed, I set out on the road. The first mile or two was really familiar, since I had ridden it the day before. I decided to make up for Sunday's short ride by tackling 70+ miles on day two. Gosh, I'm ambitious!
I was a bit worried when I first got on my bike because the rim of my front wheel was dragging on the brake. It turned out to be a minor problem that was easily fixed. The night before I had adjusted the position of the wheel's quick release. The problem arose because there was only one pannier on the wheel when I adjusted it. The weight on one side of the wheel had caused the hub to lock into place at a slight angle, causing the problem.
The day was pleasant, with flat coastal lands giving way to slight hills. The terrain alternated between forested drives and rolling farmland. I also began to notice the fluctuations of my energy level between meals, and decided to try to keep some food in me at all times. The weather began to heat up, but occasional rests in the shade restored my energy.
I found a small shop in Charles City that sold -- among other things -- kerosene. The stove I have will run on kerosene, though I will have to clean it more often. The lady who dispensed the kerosene managed to get it all over my hands, completely soaking my cycling gloves. That was particularly annoying since the constant bouncing of the road had begun causing numbness in my hands and feet. In particular, my thumbs would cramp and lose feeling, while my toes would feel dead even hours after I left the bike. I tried my best to clean the gloves, but in the end had to strap them to my rack and let them air out (having decided that piloting a loaded bicycle down hills while inhaling kerosene fumes was not probably not a good idea.)
The temperatures climbed into the low nineties in the afternoon, and I soon found myself low on water. I stopped at a well-kept church, but no one was there, so I helped myself to an outside faucet and filled my bottles. After resting for a while and eating a candy bar, I continued onward. I would have preferred to linger in the shade, but bugs attacked me the minute I sat down, so I kept moving.
I reached Ashland, a suburb of Richmond, at nightfall and found an RV park, where my tent site was discounted to $7 because of my bicycle. I realized that I should have asked for a bicycle discount the night before, and vowed to always ask before committing to a campground in the future. My stove worked like a charm and I cookled some spaghetti, though I had bought Ragu sauce because the jar size was closest to my needs. Big mistake. Ragu sucks. It's cheaper than Prego, which is odd, because Prego uses the whole tomato, while Ragu seems ot only use the assiest parts. I washed my dishes, showered, then hand-washed my cycling clothes and hung them out to dry.
I chatted with a few people around the campground, who didn't seem to understand that I was enjoying the trip. (I have something of a dry, sarcastic way of speaking -- and, incidentally, of writing. When I told them that my final destination was Oregon, they would generally say "Awwwwww" in a long, drawn-out manner, as if I was destitue and couldn't afford another means of travel. The sky remained cloudless, so I didn't set up my tent's rainfly, and I enjoyed a view of the stars before I fell asleep. All is all, it was a perfect day.