Day 41 (Wytheville to Troutville)

(93.9mi,12.9mph,4317ft)
We got on the road at 6:30 and took the roads next to the interstate instead of following the route. This saved us a few miles and hills. We stopped at McDonald's in Dublin for breakfast, about 30 miles into the ride. We took route 11 straight to Christiansburg to cut off more miles. Christiansburg would have been 56 miles on the route, but we made it in 50, and it was a very easy ride. It was downhill out of Chrisitiansburg, but at about 75 miles, we started to get more traffic. Apparently there was construction on the interstate, so lots of trucks were taking a detour onto route 11. The traffic came to a standstill around mile 78, but fortunately there was a side road that would get us to Roanoke. Unfortunately, other cars had figured this out too, so we still had traffic on a narrow, windy, back road. We reached another traffic jam on this road, but it was due to debris on the road from a recent storm. By the time we got to Roanoke, we were tired, hungry, and ready to be off of busy roads. We stopped at Pizza Hut around 3:00 and relaxed for a while. We still had to navigate through Roanoke to get to Troutville, where there is free camping in the city park. Right as we were about to leave Pizza Hut, the sky got dark and it poured rain for a few minutes. When it stopped, we decided to try and bike the final 15 miles to Troutville. We had light rain for the last hour, but it wasn't anything like earlier. We've been fortunate with rain on our trip. We had about 45 minutes of light rain in Illinois, and another 15 in Kentucky. 2 hours of rain in 41 days. Three more days left, and we have our final climb tomorrow up to Blue Ridge. Around 310 miles to go.