Here's why: 1) Everything is chalked for you. The photo above was the scene that greeted Jesse (my fellow sweep) and I at lunch. As a big team, it's the little things that help us as individuals ("put the sun the sky and the menthol in our chamois" as one rider so eloquently put it), so to see this even after only 20 or so miles was fantastic. And did I mention we eat a lot? I mean A LOT. A LOT A LOT. By 10am I've usually burned the calories that most people burn....in their entire day.
2) The people. One of the people in this photo was having excruciating knee problems. Can you tell who it is? That's what I thought. About 8 miles from Dillwyn we stopped at this little side-of-the-road store because they had a sign for local honey that Jesse had been after and to give Kathryn a rest. We got to talking with the people here and told them all about what we're doing this summer and in turn they told us about how they started as a little antique store but now do mostly food because of the demand for it. We ordered sandwiches (I got perhaps one of the best cheesesteaks I've ever had, and I would honestly say that even if I hadn't already biked 40 miles--it was incredible) and hung out for a good while just talking with them and hearing about the area and all the funny things about rural Virginia. When we went to pay after downing a sandwich and drink a piece they told us they were only charge Jesse for the honey he was getting, and then they offered us apple bread to take to the group. Oh my goodness.... I was ready to pay them and tip them AND buy more stuff just because of how great it all was. And it gets better. They had a cake they offered to us, but since we still had to bike and couldn't carry it, they called the pastor of the church we were staying at, and he drove out, picked up the cake, and brought it to us after dinner. So SOOO nice of them--the generosity and degree to which people have reached out to us even in the first week has been eye-opening and so inspiring.
3) Coming to terms with what I'm doing this summer. This is an epic tour if nothing else. Taking it slow as sweep is so perfect for a rider such as myself who tends to ride for exercise. Some of the best advice I received before the trip was to sloooooooow down and enjoy the scenery and take it all in. You see so much more on a bike than you do in a car, and that's especially true when you look up from the handlebars. The argyle socks are sweet and all, but the point of the trip is not to huff and puff away the beautiful countryside. I never knew I would say this, but Virginia is beautiful. Out here, life is beautiful.
And since that sums up the ride, the rest of the day in short consisted of a hose shower at the pastor's house, tacos/burritos made with so much love by my fellow dinner crew, more trailer painting, playing with the crazy home-schooled kids from across the street, an awesome game of "Ha" (I'll explain if you ask), and sleeping outside! Since the basement was so cramped and hot, we set up two tents outside and a bunch of us piled in (I think there were 7 people in a 4-maybe-5 person tent). It felt so good to unpack a tent I can't even explain it. One thing I didn't know about Boy Scouts while I was in it was the extent to which it would ingrain itself in me and make me appreciate certain things so much more later that I now think I probably took for granted back then or assumed were a part of "ordinary" childhood. I was shocked to learn of people who had never set up a tent before or slept outside. But now I'm glad to have shared the experience with them because that's why I'm out here. A few last photos of trailer painting so you can see our masterpiece in progress:
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