6/20 67 120mi ? cookie lady's house afton,VA

My bike computer doesn't even try anymore now. It just tells me what time it is which is what it does in sleeper mode. Don't really care about it that much though. I'm not gonna lie, my legs were a little bit sore this morning after my ridiculous day yesterday. Got going a little after 7 a.m. Stopped in daleville and mailed my tent along with some extra clothes and other randon stuff home. Threw away a lot of garbage that I hadn't really used and didn't need anymore. 15 pounds lighter I headed out. One town I stopped in to refill my bottles had no potable water because their well had gotten contaminated. I was lucky to get stopped before ai filled my bottles and took off. Ate at a buffet in lexington and was on country roads for almost the whole day. Followed a river to vesuvius which was right before the last 'horrible, steep, scary, leg breaking climb' according to the westbounders I had been meeting. That climb was 'long' at 4 miles, but it wasn't super steep and you could even recover for about 10-15 seconds in about 5 places where the grades was only 1-2%. In fairness I do have around 4000+ miles in my legs AND I actually rode before that on a regular basis and I like/love climbing. Finished the climb in about 36 minutes and then was on the blue ridge parkway. I was excited to be on the parkway because I had read an article in bicyclign magazine about it a year or so ago and it sounded like a real nice ride. It didn't dissappoint. Great views, good road surface, low traffic (even on a saturday). I stopped and bought a gtorade and then as I rejoined the parkway saw a rider up ahead on a hill who had sat up and looked behind them a couple of times. I put in a good,hard effort to bridge up to them and as I got closer noticed the rider was wearing a purpleish jersey. All right I thought a female rider is up there, this will be great. As I got closer it turned out to be a dude, but a cool dude. He was from the area and chatted and rode together until the cookie lady's house which is just before afton. He pushed it on the climbs because he had no extra wieght and it was good because it made me push harder also, but it made talking difficult. I overcooked 1 of the corners and went off into the grass, but managed to avoid going tumbling down the ditch. I didn't follow the locals line and when the turn tightened I was already on my exit of it. Its good to do that every once in a while to keep your head screwed on straight. Stopped at the cookie ladies house ( she has been taking in cyclists for around 30 years and is a mainstay on the transam route) and decided to stay since there wasn't anything down the road for awhile. Got my picture taken by her and met 4 other westbounders as I was putting it in one of her many photo albums. There were 6 cyclists staying that night. A brother/sister pair Aaron and Shaz who were headed to seattle and hopefully I can get together with them and hear how their trip went. A coule from Boston Lou and Malory who were headed to san fran and taking the western express. A couple of other guys whose names I forget, but one of whose older brother had done the trip a couple years earlier. Made some dinner for myslef with some assistance from the girls and then we all sat around and talked. Talked to Lou about riding around boston on a fixie and just basically chilled out. A little while later malordy cooked up a second dinner and Lou made some tea and we all ate that too. So much junk food to snack on there and so good. Had a little trouble falling asleep for some reason, maybe it was becaus I couldn't hear cars going by during the night?