November 12-18. It would have been great to ride through West Virginia and Virginia, and all the way to Florida, for that matter, but that just wasn't going to happen. First, the weather has been unusually cold and nasty, and riding through the mountains, where it's even colder and windier would not have been enjoyable. To compound all the climbing I would have been doing, would gave been brutal because of my conditioning. It's amazing how fast your body can go to hell in a hand basket when you are almost 60 years old. I am just hoping that when I finally do get going, that I have a tailwind. I know for certain that I won't be banging out multiple, consecutive 60-80 mile days, like I became accustomed to, during the big adventure. I will work back up to that level, but I'm far from it now.
We left Claysville under very cool (cold with snow flurries) and overcast conditions, and as we made our way into the mountains, the occasional rain, became occasional snow flurries. The occasional snow flurries became steady snow flurries. The steady snow flurries then started to accumulate on the fields and trees along the road. The roads became wet, but never slippery. Then, before things could get too bad, the salt trucks came out. Good thing I wasn't somewhere out there on a bike. We traveled I-79 thru West Virginia, onto US 19, over the New River Gorge Bridge, and onto the West Virginia Turnpike to the Virginia state line. At that point we were on I-77, in an area where slick roads are very common due to ice fog as you come down out of the mountains. We ended up getting off of I-77 in Hillsville, VA, and traveling 14 miles off the interstate to find a Passport America campground. We were the only people there, and since we were still in a mountainous area, it dipped WAY below freezing, as we pulled in the water hose so it didn't freeze, and tested our RV's heating system, like we've never had to test it. It passed with flying colors, as nothing froze, including us. But it did snow during the night! The Jeep was white in the morning!!!
Friday morning, (we had to wait for the ice on the roads to melt!) we rolled about eleven am for the two hour ride south on I-77and east on I-40 to Tanglewood Park in Clemmons, NC, which is a suburb of Winston Salem. ( I highly recommend this campground! Big, spacious sites and a beautiful park.) We set up, and when Tirzah and the three boys got out of school, they came to pick us up for an evening in town, at the Foothills Brewery, a great, kid friendly place. We enjoyed a meal and catching up, and made plans for the next two days. On Saturday, Tirzah played tour guide, and we traveled the area, saw all the sights, and had pizza at the Magic Mushroom, a pizza place in the downtown area, that makes a mean veggie pizza. After being our tour guide all day, Tirzah followed that up with a dinner of crazy good chili at their home. (It was so good that I didn't even miss the meat!)
Sunday was spent at the park where we were staying, enjoying the walking path and the horse barns (Pam, Tirzah, and Isaac,) while Zachary, Scotty, and I played a very competitive game of touch football, with me as steady quarterback.
We stayed Monday, because we had an appointment on Tuesday morning, in Statesville, at the Camping World, about thirty miles away, for minor repairs and refrigerator and generator maintenance. Monday was a total rain out, followed by a deep temperature dive, that ended up in the low twenties or teens overnight, freezing all the water that built up on our slide toppers, and freezing the tow bars so we couldn't tow the jeep, so I had to drive to Statesville. Monday evening, we said goodbye to Tirzah and the boys, and once again Tirzah fed us (pasta and salad) after a tough day of school, where fortunately, the only thing that got broken was her phone. ( a long story that is not mine to tell)
Monday night I was seriously debating riding to Statesville, even with the freezing temps and 15 mph head wind. I chickened out, even though the tow bar freezing would have nixed the ride anyhow, because I had to follow Pam in the jeep.
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