6/17 64 78mi ? haysi,VA

Woke up to a great breakfast. Had to climb that hill again but I was unloaded this time. Left after chaniging a spoke and putting my spare tire on my rear rim. My steller shwalbe marathon plus finally had to be retired because I was a little scared or riding on it because the liner was showing through the rubber in a lot of places. Broke a spoke pretty early in the day and 1 of the spokes that mike had given me somehow escaped the clutches of my zipties and was long gone, so I just had to roll with it. My bike computer decided to stop playing nice and quit about 2 hours in. No amount of blowing, wiping, hitting or cajolling could get it to work for longer that 3 seconds at a shot. Stopped at a little tiny town and mailed home about 9 lbs 11 ounces of stuff. The lady at the post office was nice and gave me a diet coke, which she gives to all the hiker/bikers coming through town. Broke another spoke sometime later. Met 4 guys who were riding east. 2 of them were doing the western express, pueblo,co->san fran,ca, and the other 2 were doing the transam. Got a spoke from one of them and replaced it right there. Had a really steep climb up 1459 and got a flat on the descent. My spoke had poked through my tire sidewall and caused my to flat. Thankfully I wasn't going into a corner when it happened. I fixed the flat and put a patch over the hoel in the sidewall and kept on going. Almost hit a truck that was taking up the middle of the 1 1/2 lane road. I got by him with about a foot to spare and a couple of inches of pavement on my right side. Got another flat about 5 miles down the road and replaced that one too. Got waved at by a girl before I started some climb which gave me wings for about 90 seconds. The dogs weren't bad at all. I got chased halfheartedly by 5-6, but no huge snarling pit bulls and dobermans like everyone was telling me. There were a couple of rundown little sections, but they were scattered and not the huge 40 mile stretch that everyone had told me about. Everyone I talked to was nice and helpfull even though it was a little hard to decipher through the accent. Finally got into Virginia around 7 or so. A lot later than what I thought. I ate dinner by the high school and waited for the open gym to get over and everyone to leave before I went to the back and slept under an awning. I slept on the ground because I didn't want to set up my wet tent and figured I don't care about snakes anymore! Hope that my rim holds up until damascus which is 60-70 miles away. 3 broken spokes and a blown sidewall with only 1 spare tube is a little scary. Gonna get on the road early and try to get to damascus in the early afternoon. I heard they have a hostel where a lot of the appalachian trail thru-hikers stay which will be pretty cool.