Finally, a college town with a bar.

We left the gas station relatively early for Charlottesville to try and make up some time. It was around 55 miles away and ended up being a pretty easy ride. We seem to be getting shape a lot quicker than we thought. So when we hit town we go to the bike shop there to check it out and it was probably the worst shop I've ever been to. They didn't really offer to help us when we came in and charged Iris $10 to tighten one screw... The name of the place is Blue Wheel Bicycles and don't go unless you have to. Unfortunately, we did have to get some rear lights because of the fog in the mountains so had to do business with them after much chagrin. While we were at the shop, however, we did meet a guy outside who happened to be doing the same route as us but lost his map sometime earlier. We let the guy copy ours at a place next door, the National Institute of Social Norms, which if anyone knows what is please let me know... More on that guy later...

So, we leave, and Iris happens to know a guy she met in D.C. who currently rents an apartment in Charlottesville. He was out of town but we stayed with his roommate, Blake, who was a real cool guy. We cooked dinner for him and got him a sixer for putting us up. We also met his friend Matt who was a bike tourer as well and had done a 20 day ride from Canada to Alaska. He told us a story about a 12 hour, 3300 foot elevation day they had to do because a guy's bike got lost for a day on the plane ride. It made our upcoming mountain ride seem a little easier...

So Blake took us out that night to a bar called Coupe Deville that had $2 pitchers on Tuesday nights, which would have been sweet but we were there on Monday and they were $8... Should've camped longer... I just wanted to go out and find a place to stay but all the girls were getting hit on by a multitude of popped collars which made things difficult... We ended up going to another bar called Three and closing it down after some car bombs. Everyone took a taxi back but I was kinda feeling good and wanted to wander around... Ended up in a magnolia tree a couple of blocks away from the house and spotting a McDonald's before getting back to the house. Thank god for chicken sandwiches at 3 in the morning...

The next day we chilled around the house for a while so we (the girls) could get some internet stuff done and Iris needed to mail some weight back home; the mountains were getting closer and we all had a bunch of unnecessary shit. We tossed the disc a little and left for Afton, a foothills town only 20 miles down the road. We didn't leave til 5 because of all the shit we had to do but still had time to make it. That was the day we learned that it rains in the evenings around here and we probably should've left earlier... We get on the road and no more than 15 minutes later it starts coming down heavy. It was during rush hour, too, which made things interesting. We finally made it to Afton, after getting buzzed by a few cars and honked at and flipped off more than once, to the most amazing spot I've ever seen in my life.

Next post... The Cookie Lady.