Practice Run

Lunch at Uptown Cafe in Victoria, VA.

As the first year of teaching is getting close to the end we thought it would be a good idea to do a practice run. This summer we will be biking from San Francisco, CA to Virginia Beach, VA. Lets get it.

Lesson #1: People are inherently kind and giving.

Late Friday night we laid everything out on the living floor. Bikes shorts, jerseys, change of socks, food, camp stove, sleeping bags, tent, water, bike tools, and sunscreen. This weekend was our test run. We packed up the bikes and after a minor hiccup Saturday morning that involved driving 70 miles round trip to Durham to buy and install a $7 bike tube we were ready to hit the road.

Tent, stove, camping gear packed away.

Our destination was 80 miles north to Twin Lakes State Park in central Virginia. Jack took responsibility for the route, giving us turn by turn directions from the handwritten post-it note he was carrying in his back pocket.

Lesson #2: The confederate lives on.

We rode past a handful of Confederate Flags riding through the rural back country of northern North Carolina and southern Virginia. The ride on Saturday took a little over 6.5 hour. The forecast called for rain all afternoon, but we somehow missed the storm and rolled into the campground at sunset. Before we could even unpack the gear from our panniers a nice man appeared from the campsite next to us with a plate of four hamburgers, fixings, and a pot of creamed corn. “You guys hungry?”

Lesson #3: When married, take time away from everything to spend time with your partner.

Lou and Julie were having a weekend together away from the kids (2 and 6 years old). Shortly after getting the tent set up it began to rain. Jack and I retreated to the campground bathrooms and stashed our bikes in the bathroom to protect them from the rain. We waited out the worst of storm in the bathroom stretching after a long day on the bike.

We fell asleep a little after 11 pm, finding calm in the soft sound of the Avett Brothers coming from Jack’s iPod. We woke a little after 8 am and packed up camp as we had a breakfast of peanut butter bagels and fruit.

Packing our panniers, biking with weight on the bike and biking with our new pedals and clips became more and more comfortable throughout the weekend. The ride home was gorgeous, with most of the 80 miles back home to North Carolina being on back country highways.

Minor flooding on  bridge over Kerr Lake.

Thankful for this weekend and glad to get a solid practice run in before we leave in a month from San Francisco. Thank you Lou and Julie, looking forward to having kids one day.

Back home at Jack's in Oxford, NC.