Day 1/2

Mileage: 68
Cumulative trail distance: 32

Whew, this day has been quite a wild ride and certainly didn't finish up the way it was looking when it started!

Originally the plan was to catch a train to Newport News last night, sleep near the beach in Yorktown and launch off early this morning. Fortunately, I stopped at the Amtrak station in Charlottesville a few nights ago to make sure everything was kosher and found out that I wouldn't be able to take my bike on the evening train, but could check it in the luggage car leaving early this morning.

Hilariously. They also told me that it was mandatory to ship your bike in a box, (which involves some disassembly) So I dug my pedal wrenches out of summer storage, snagged a bike box from the Amtrak dumpster and stashed it for the night outside a nearby classmate's  apartment (sorry Hannah for not mentioning that). After going through the trouble of riding to the station, disassembling my bike, recovering the box and packing everything up, the conductor came over, looked at the box and said 'Can we take the bike out of the box and just ship it whole? It's so much easier for us that way.'

But I digress. After a couple of delays, me and my fully assembled bike got to Newport News a little after noon. It turns out that while the city centers of Yorktown and Newport are only about 10 miles apart, the Amtrak station and my trip's starting point are actually 36 miles distant (if you include a decently sized detour for groceries. I finally got to the Yorktown monument a little after 3 and promptly took a nap in a nearby park. Let me tell you, it was HOT and HUMID today. Even downing a bottle of water every 20 minutes, I was definitely falling behind on the hydration curve while on the bike. I think tomorrow I'm going to try and ride most of my mileage before noon, and sleep during the afternoon.

I waited out the rest of the afternoon, pounded a delicious quart of chocolate ice cream from the grocery store (calories! ! ! ) and was considering starting the trail tomorrow morning. But with so much daylight left, I figured it would be a shame not to knock out a quick 20 more miles. 36 wasn't enough for day 1, even if I had lost the morning, besides they didn't count since they were before the start. So I went to the starting memorial (pictured) and then rode down past the beach. I really wanted a shot with my back wheel in the Atlantic ocean, so that if I make it all the way across before the summer ends, I can bookend it with a shot of my front wheel in the Pacific.

So around 6pm I took off and rode from Yorktown to Williamsburg. I took my time seeing the historic downtown and even got to see the William and Mary campus briefly. It reminded me a little bit of Disneyland. Everything was quaint, well kept, clean, and there even might have been some colonial magic in the air! I decided to finish off with 10 more miles and sleep in Jamestown tonight. However, apparently Jamestown is a desolate replica of a long destroyed city, so I just skirted the perimeter and kept going. About that time it started to cool off and actually began raining a little. I kept rolling, looking for a decent spot to spend the night, hopefully somewhere I wouldn't have to get all my gear wet.

And then the skies just decided to open up. There were a few massive lightning strikes and I was pretty soaked within about 5 minutes. I was about ready to resign to hunkering down between a couple trees and packing up wet gear tomorrow, when I saw a little sign mentioning a park coming up in 5 miles. Since I was already soaked, I decided it couldn't hurt to check it out. Boy oh boy did it pay off! It's one of those parks with the little ramadas over a couple picnic benches where you can eat out of the rain. So big time score! Tonight I get to sleep warm and dry on a picnic table while it storms outside.  Hopefully the rain will be done by tomorrow morning, because my clothes are starting to dry out, but either way we're pushing through. Gotta finish these tortillas with pepperoni and peanut butter so I can get some sleep before my first full day of riding! G'night !

(Also, first time ever blogging so I have no idea how the pictures will load or where they'll show up. I put three in this post, hopefully they're there)