Dispatches from the road they 31 and 32

 Dispatches from the road they 31 and 32

Dispatches from the road by Bill Poindexter

Limited cell reception sorry for the delays

Day 31 and 32; while I’m laying down on a picnic bench it’s around 8:40 in the evening. I’m at Lake Sherando which is part of the United States forest service, and they’re charging me prime rates to set up my little town on a patch of dirt, $25 do you believe that? Unless I do get a shower and it is a nice park. Most parks let hikers and bikers come in for a significant discount like for instance when I went to the state park in Missouri Johnson shut in they charge me two dollars to set up my tent. Others do five dollars but half of them just didn’t even charge me. So I understand the need to support the system but $25 is just too much. But let me go back to two days ago when I left Buchanan I may we made my way from Buchanan to Lexington was a fairly nice ride nothing extraordinary just lotta beautiful countryside and a lot of farms that I passed seems like people are kind of creating their own little farms out in the country I really like seeing that. And then it was a pretty good Jaunt to Vesuvius after I stopped in Lexington which is also where the Virginia Military Institute is reminds me and my day is in Lexington Missouri at Wentworth military Academy when I was in high school. But I stopped at a burger joint and had a burger and fries and a chocolate shake unbeknownst to me that I was going to need it just a couple hours later climbing out of Vesuvius up to the Blue Ridge Parkway it was a 7 mile climb when I probably stayed on my bike about 3/4 of the time in 25% of the time I pushed my bike it was pretty intense and then the campground on the other side because I was running low on food I couldn’t go to Sherando park because it was no food there and that was another almost 20 miles I stopped at Montebello campground and their store closed at five so luckily all I had was just enough food for one good meal some dried potato flakes peanut butter tunafish garlic olive oil dandelion greens various other kinds of greens one stick of cheese which I saved for the morning and various nuts and seeds and of course I had some back up coffee which was sorely needed and also some coffee nubs which you can see in the pictures look pretty dangerous basically they’re just chocolate caffeine nuggets. I dare not even look at the ingredients. :-) But yesterday was great I mean it was a hard day for sure once I got up to the Blue Ridge Parkway I never went on the parkway because I had to go into Montebello which was about 3 miles up and down to the campsite and it was a good campsite and there was a little stocked trout lake too bad I didn’t have my fishing rod I could have some fish for dinner and it was just good it was nice and quiet even liked it better than this Natura this US forest park. And I slept really well got up today and I made my way to the country store on by the campground and stocked up on food for the next 2 to 3 days do you know the essentials tortillas tuna chocolate milk trail mix packets of mustard and mayonnaise and cheese and Gatorade and I can’t remember what else doesn’t really matter right now it’s just about getting me from point a to point B and I want high calorie food and I don’t feel like cooking so that is typical fair for a bike packing journey specially when you start getting into the day 30+ oh also potato chips potato chips are a must because you need that need a lot of salt. 

OK so I decided to this is the big news by the way so big change of plan I decided to because I’m supposed to be on Martha’s Vineyard around the 15th and it’s already the third there’s no way that I can make it based on my original plan so what I’ve decided to do is to slow down not rushed to the coast and hang around up here in the mountains because it is just extraordinary and play up here for a few days and then make my way to Yorktown as planned but then I’m gonna double back to Williamsburg and hop a train and take that to somewhere maybe Providence or Boston and then bike to Martha’s Vineyard from there that way I’m not rushed and honestly between you and me the idea of biking from Yorktown to Martha’s Vineyard wasn’t super attractive to me if I had to rush it so I think this will be a better plan plus I need to get on the Vineyard and start working because I need to make money. Money yeah Gotta pay the bills too. So I’m going to hang out here for a few days, then I’ll make my way to Thomas Jefferson‘s house, and then to Yorktown and then to Williamsburg and then a train to somewhere where I can ride to Martha’s Vineyard. And that goes along with most of my other journeys to have using a train as part of the transportation. And actually I’m super excited about that because I love trains especially on the East Coast. 

So back to yesterday I met three cyclist that we’re heading west think they were some of them were using E bikes and they were all my age are a little bit older. I didn’t get their names they weren’t super sociable. Then I met a couple from Spain who was just riding the Blue Ridge Parkway they were just here for a couple of weeks. They were really super nice. You can see their pictures. Didn’t get their names though don’t remember their names doesn’t really matter. And so back to you today so I got up got resupplied and decided to hang around the area that I camped out last night and went to Crabtree Falls but took a back route called Crabtree Meadows Road which was very similar to basically a mountainous gravel road which was a lot of fun took me about two hours to get there and mostly uphill a lot of pushing because I could didn’t have a lot of traction cause a loose gravel and so I spent about 25% of the time pushing my bike up gravel roads which I thoroughly enjoyed. Did a hour and a half hike to the Falls and back and then rode back to the country store for some ice cream and some more food. And it was funny because took me two hours to get to the Falls going there and only took me about a half hour to come back because it was mostly downhill. And met a couple of AT hikers at the store they weren’t social super sociable and, then I headed up to the Blue Ridge Parkway which is really just a beautiful fun road to be on the speed limit 45 miles an hour and there can be no truck traffic at all I love that! And slowly made my way to this campground and seem like it took longer than it should but I was tired from yesterday‘s climb the day before a climb and yeah and today’s today’s climb two. As I was heading towards this campground a gentleman on a motorcycle Greg from Buzzards Bay Massachusetts which is very close to Martha’s Vineyard pull alongside me as some motorcyclist Do and started a conversation with me and found out that he lives close to Martha’s Vineyard he’s been on the road in his RV since December and basically the rest of the time he lives on a boat in Buzzards Bay during the summers and so we struck up a conversation and then he told me he was actually staying at the same campground that I was heading to so I invited him to come by my campsite and he came by this night and while I was having dinner and he was having a beer we had a nice chat so a good guy very creative and it was just fun to talk to a fellow traveler when I first got here too I met two other cyclist that were setting up their tents at a site and Joel and Rob and they were from this area and really super nice guys and almost set up a tent by them but decided to go ahead and do my own campground tonight especially since I had invited Greg to come by to I’d forgotten that when I first got here. It was fun to see two other cyclist that were tempting to ride these massive hills as well. Anyway having fun enjoying the night now it’s completely dark I’m still sitting on my bench on my picnic table now looking at stars hoping that it doesn’t rain tonight but it probably will and that’s OK. So again just remember that I am doing this by dictation I’m not going to edit at all on this one so it might look a little weird but you’ll just have to figure that out what I mean. And again if you like my writings and wanna hear more please support me by buying me a cup of coffee and maybe a sandwich I’m on a super tight budget and the strips to cost me a lot more than I thought it would just because it’s it’s really hard to find places to be able to stock up on food and I’m having to eat a lot at convenient stores which is like blowing my budget out of the water. And I do plan to keep riding while I am on Martha’s Vineyard this summer and I’ll be giving you day by day exploits of what it’s like to be a novice cheese maker and a field hand at age 58 on an island off the coast of Massachusetts and I’ll be telling about those exploits as well. So you can find me on Venmo if you want to support me and or just reach out to me directly and I’ll give you more contact info. And again I appreciate you reading my stories and also you can find me on Facebook if you’re if you’re haven’t found me there yet. Peace and love from the road Bill Poindexter

Will do pictures later poor reception