Day 44 (Glendale to Yorktown)

(61mi,13.5mph)
Slept in and left around 10. We rode 20 miles, then stopped at a BBQ trailer on the side of the road in Charles City.  From there it was only 40 more miles, so we pushed all the way to the end without stopping. The last 20 miles were on the Colonial Parkway, which would have been a nice road, except the concrete pavement was really rough.  We arrived in Yorktown and met up with Tom and Caroline Kelter. (Katie's dad and sister) We officially ended at the Victory Monument in Yorktown, 3775 miles from San Francisco.  We averaged 86 miles per day over 44 days. It's been a great trip, but I think we're all ready to be done riding for a few days. Now we're at Virginia Beach, and it's time to relax!

GPS Track

Day 43 (Charlottesville to Glendale)

(130.9mi,13.1mph,4998ft)
We had breakfast at McDonald's and then headed east on the route. After about 25 miles, we intersected highway 250, which was a straight shot to Richmond. There was very light traffic, so we decided to take the shortcut to make it to a church in Glendale, rather than a campground that would have been 110 miles on the route. Our idea backfired once again as we found ourselves on a busy 4-6 lane road on the outskirts of Richmond. I found a detour to get us back onto the route, and we stopped in Mechanicsville for dinner around 6 after 110 miles. It was 20 more miles along the route to the church, so we made a final push to get there before dark. It's nice to have A/C on our last night of the trip. We're going to sleep in because we have 60 more miles to Yorktown. The route continues to get flatter, so it should be a very easy, shorter ride. Almost there!
(I didn't take any pictures today, but I found this picture of us on another cyclist's blog. This is in Larned, KS)

Day 42 (Troutville to Charlottesville)

(99mi,11.5mph,8067ft)
We woke up to rain, so we didn't get started until 9 when the rain lightened. We still ended up riding through rain for the first hour, but then it stopped and eventually cleared up. The high was 85 today, which was a really nice change. We rode about 30 miles to Lexington for lunch and then 20 miles to Vesuvius, where we would start our last climb up to Blue Ridge Parkway. The climb started out fairly steep, but leveled out and became an easy ride up to 3200ft. We rode on Blue Ridge Parkway for 25 miles or so, then coasted to a campground to make it 99 miles for the day. It's pretty much flat from here on, and we're excited to get up and ride the last 200 miles. After looking at the maps, we're probably going to try and take a few shortcuts. The route gets pretty windy and avoids some roads that aren't bad to ride on. We'll be careful to try to avoid situations like yesterday with traffic. Two days left. They should be easy, but hopefully rain doesn't slow us down.

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.

Day 40 (Council to Wytheville)

(88.1mi,11.2mi,7268ft)
Got an early start today, but even though it was 75 degrees, we were dripping with sweat within minutes due to the humidity. We had two bigger climbs in the first 30 miles, then just small hills. When we got to Meadowview, we headed east on route 11 instead of following the maps. We had been told that it would cut off about 25 miles and a bunch of climbing. The shortcut was easy riding, just a little extra traffic due to construction on the interstate that runs parallel. We stopped in Wytheville around 4:45 and decided to quit for the day because there wasn't any camping for another 30 miles on the route. At Walmart, we met Mark, who invited us to stay at his house. We took showers and cooled off in the air conditioning while we talked about cycling with Mark. It's going to be so nice sleeping inside away from the humidity! Four more days to go, and it feels like we're practically there; only 420 more miles. That may seem like a big number, but it feels like nothing compared to what we've already come through. (3383mi, 84.6mi/day) We have small hills until we get to Blue Ridge, then one final climb to Blue Ridge Parkway before its all downhill and relatively flat to the coast.

Day 39 (Hindman, KY to Council, VA)

(94.6mi,10.8mph,7943ft)
Left around 7 and had an easy ride for a few miles before we started the first of 4 big hills left in Kentucky. We met a pair of cyclists on the road that had stayed Hindman last night, except in a church. For free. Apparently the guy from the hostel/historical society had complained to ACA (the company that makes our maps) about this church taking away his customers. There isn't much we can do about it now except for giving other cyclists advice about avoiding this hostel. Anyway, enough complaining. We got to Virginia 66 miles later and it almost felt like finishing the trip. We were done with our least favorite state, and starting the last one of the whole ride. We went up some steep climbs past Breaks, and arrived in Council 28 miles later. Tonight we have a free park to camp in, which helps make up a little for last night. Today was a tough day as far as terrain. Probably one of our toughest days aside from Utah and the first 2-3 days of the trip. We still managed to make it close to 100 miles to stay on schedule, and tomorrow we have about a 25 mile shortcut that will also bypass some climbing. 5 more days until we're in Yorktown, and it feels good to be in Virginia!