Day 35 (6/26/09)

Since the death of Michael Jackson is everywhere, even on the Weather Channel, I would be remiss not to mention his passing on the Blog. His death will be one of those; "Where were you when ..." events. It came to me that when I was writing yesterday's blog, commenting on the fact that life is good, Michael Jackson was probably being pronounced dead and Farah Fawcett had died. Life is good, but short, which is why we chose to do this trip. Tomorrow is not guaranteed and you have to live your dreams. Spinning through the tree covered rural roads today, seeing deer in the freshly mowed pastures, twin dear fawns, wild turkeys flying across the road in front of us, the Blue Ridge mountains shadowing us, I doubted Michael Jackson, with all the wealth he had, ever experienced something so basic and beautiful. When we grow older and tell our grand kids that we road our bikes across the United States in the year Michael Jackson died, they will have a time perspective of when we did our journey.


Just as soon as I mentioned in yesterday's blog about continuing to pass cyclists westbound, today was probably the first day that we didn't see any cyclists on the road. Although we didn't see any cyclists, we did spy two hikers and their tents bivouacked in the front yard of a house where the Appalachian trial crossed our path. They looked more wore out than us and dirtier. No Holiday Inn Express for them for the night.

Jere got another opportunity to race a dog, this time the dog wasn't in a dog run. We saw two dogs ahead of us on the road ahead, one a small dog and the other a medium size dog. They were in the middle of the road, going our direction so they didn't see us until we got close. The larger dog saw Jere in the lead and went for him (the little dog was never a threat to anyone). Jere stood up and mashed his pedals, quickly building up speed in an attempt to out run the dog. Tim and I just maintained our roll, watching the sport. The dog kept with Jere, stride for stride, neither capable of out doing the other. Assuming Tim and I would be fair game after the dog was done playing with Jere, I armed myself with my water bottle. Sure enough, the dog ran out of juice before Jere did. As the dog was regrouping with its tongue hanging out, Tim and I rode up on him. Just as the dog's head whipped around when he heard us and he made a lung toward us, I blasted him in the face with a stream of water. The dog's brief hesitation over the initial shock of "What was that?" afforded Tim and I enough opportunity to sprint by untormented. Fortunately, for Tim and I, Jere was whipped and the remaining ride into Lexington was at a leisurely pace. We rode about 92 miles to Lexington today. On Day 36, we climb to the top of the Blue Ridge Parkway and ride on the parkway for about 20 miles before descending into the valley and heading to Charlottseville. We will actually ride about 25 miles past Charlottseville to give us a 100 mile day. We will shuttle back to Charlottseville to spend the night and hopefully, drinks at a recommended Brew Pub. We are joined for the rest of the ride by another Hanovarian, Joe Kahler.

P.S. Flat tire tally: Jere - 5, Sam - 2, Tim - 2. Jere somehow developed a slow leak in his front tire about 68 miles into the day. Shortly, after a refueling stop, Jere said; "somethings wrong with my front tire, its rubbing on my brake pads." When we stopped to check it out, he noticed the low tire pressure. We rode a couple of miles before replacing the tube, but we chose the place of changing, rather than the tire.