Mineral, Virginia, to Ashland, Virginia -- 51 miles

We woke at 7 am and had breakfast with Tony and Louise. Lenny packed our bikes and gear in the back of their station wagon. We crammed ourselves in the car and left at 9 am. We traveled 35 miles to get back on the bike route – Lorraine navigated using the state map. We took one more photo and said goodbye, then started biking at 10:30 am.

Just down the road, we met Jin Lee and Lee Childers, who had biked around Europe and were now heading from Yorktown to San Diego. Lenny realized that he had left his camera back where we started from, so he raced back to get it. Lenny had taken a group photo of all of us and when we said goodbye, he forgot to get the camera off the air conditioner. The camera was set on a mini-tripod and some vibration must have caused it to fall. When Lenny came back and didn’t see it, he thought someone had taken it until he looked on the ground. The camera was okay with the exception of the flash, which would no longer stay closed. Lenny was relieved that it was still there, since he had all the pictures of his godfather on that roll.

Today’s route was much flatter; we rode past farms, homes, and horses. When we arrived in Ashland, we rode past the campus of Randolph-Macon College. We stopped at the visitor’s center to find out where the stores were in town. We went to the hardware store – Lenny got velcro to keep his flash closed and electrical tape to fix Lorraine’s rear view mirror. We ate at the Smokey Pig restaurant, bought groceries at Food Lion and rode the last 4 miles to the AmeriKamps campground. We got cleaned up and fell asleep to the roar of traffic on the adjacent 8-lane highway!