July 13, 2013 - The Beginning of the Ascent

It's finally time for me to wrap my head around the fact that we will be traveling on MOUNTAINS!!  They are beautiful though...the Blue Ridge...

Greg, ready to do 45-plus miles today...

I was ready to find a fruit and veggie stand!

Found this place tucked away...seriously, I had to drive about a mile in the woods to get to it.  But saw several lady drivers heading back and they were smiling, so, I figured, okay...I'll check it out!

The path...

The poetry...

The PR...

The produce...

The farm wasn't what I expected, but so far, the tomato was sweet and delicious!

Along the highway, going to our next destination, I spotted my lost love...

...Starbucks are now few and far between and so I just wave as I drive by (sniff, sniff), plus you just can't fit a big rig in their parking lot!!





Later on in the day, as I was driving the jeep to pick up Greg, I passed by this huge pig pen with a ton of pink and brown pigs rooting around in the mud!  I would have loved to have taken a picture of that, but there was no where to stop.  Many of the roads around here have ditches on either side of them...my guess is to catch all the rain coming of the roads and channel it to use.  But if the jeep fell into one...it wouldn't come out!!  So sorry, no piggies!

Caught up to Greg just before he stopped.

A pretty neat thing happened today.

This morning Greg had mentioned that the handlebars that were rewrapped just the other day at a bike store, were unravelling.  He thought maybe it was because of all the rain. We remembered that my cousin and his wife had biked from Alaska to California (their story is impressive!) and had told us that they encountered a lot of rain in Alaska.  So I emailed them to ask if they had the same problem and if so, what did they do about it.  And then Greg was off to ride.

So at some point in the day, Greg is riding along, thinking, "somewhere in the RV is a roll of electrical tape, I should have some with me, but I don't want to take that roll in case we need it for the RV".

As his ride continues, he looks down and passes something on the road.  Pulls off.  Rides back.  And laying there is a complete roll of black electrical tape!!

We return to the RV, and as I usually do, I check my email.  They responded.  Yeah, the same thing had happened to them - so electrical tape was used after rewrapping the handlebar tape and they never had another problem with it!

How cool is that??!!

God gave Greg the supplies before we even learned of the solution!  Amazing.