36 Busted Spokes, part 4
Hungry Mother
The Blue Ridge Parkway carries on from the southern terminus of the Skyline Drive where you exit the National Park. We only spent about half a day on the Parkway, then turned west on a small county road that descended rapidly out of the mountains. After a night in a small private campground, we finished the descent into the valley of the Shenandoah River, where we continued our journey traveling southwest.
Our eighth day on the road saw a sea change for our little troop. Until then we had been adhering pretty well to some guidelines, established by Scott, meant to keep our spending in check. One person would handle the day’s food purchases, another the overnight fees. None of us felt we had any discretionary money to spend. This seemed sensible at the start as we had to ensure our funds would last the better part of a year.
That day we were riding a rural leg of the Bikecentennial trail, a transcontinental bike route mapped out to promote bicycle touring in conjunction with the nation’s 200th birthday. The route was chosen to avoid traffic more than anything, and that meant avoiding big towns. The few stores we passed were closed for Sunday, so we were frustrated in our efforts to buy lunch. The day was cool. We were working hard, pedaling into a headwind. By the time we did find an open store, we were famished. Much to Scott’s consternation, Don, Chris and I rushed into the store and bought all manner of junk food to fill our bellies.
From then on, meals were a “serve yourself” affair. To Scott’s credit, he didn’t protest this adjustment of our plans, but any notion that we were dealing from a combined fund flew by like a motorist late for church.
That night, after riding 78 miles and with another 15 to go before our planned camping spot, we decided to take a hotel in Radford, Virginia. The first, but far from the last time we would take refuge indoors. Cramming four men, their bicycles and all their equipment in one hotel room is far from an extravagance, but we had a hot shower, and were able to watch some football on TV and that felt like decadence.
We had dinner at McDonalds next door.
Two relatively easy days later, we rolled into a state park known as Hungry Mother, named for the nearby river.
We built a fire that night with found wood, and a box of logs provided by camper neighbors. There were coals left in the morning, so we were able to drive the chill out of our bones with another blaze.
We were on the road by 8:30, with a long day’s ride ahead of us, starting with a three-mile climb that took 45 minutes. I found myself cursing the route: “Hungry Mother!” became a curse I said through heaving breaths. The crest was apparently a dumping ground for the locals. Garbage of all kinds surrounded the sign that informed us we had reached an elevation of 3415 feet.
Over the top we descended a long, twisting road into a narrow valley, dropping to 1600 feet. We immediately began a winding, twisting ascent climbing again to over 3,000 feet, before another hairpin-riddled descent into a very narrow valley. Our third difficult climb of the morning brought us up and over one more mountain ridge. Finally we dropped into a pretty valley of cleared pastures and rolling hills. People waved at us as they drove past.
Our route turned southwesterly again, paralleling the mountains on a multilane divided highway, route 460. After the first 16 miles we arrived in the town of Richlands where we had lunch. The next 10 miles were uphill, but much of it followed a river, so was gradual, unlike our morning climbs. Once at the top, we had a 17 mile stretch coasting downhill through a steep ravine. We had entered coal country. The air became hazy with coal dust, our faces taking on a darker shade not caused by tanning. The worst of it, though, were the giant coal trucks roaring past. We had heard stories that the truckers were malicious toward bicyclists, and decided the right way to deal with them was to just get off the road as they approached. We survived.
We turned off route 460 just past the town of Vansant, onto route 83, which we followed for about 15 miles to the small town of Haysi. By now it was nearly 6:00 p.m. and we were exhausted, but we pushed on another nine miles to our destination, Breaks Interstate Park. We had pedaled a very difficult 84 miles, pushing past the 500-mile mark for the trip over the last stretch.
We set up camp with with the aid of our flashlights, and dined on fried chicken we’d picked up in Haysi.
This is part 4 of a chronicle of a 13,000-mile bicycle ride around the United States (and a wee bit of Canada). See part 1 here.
