I tried to take some photos to show the general scenery I was passing through. I was tempted by a 'wine slushy' at the peach farm but resisted knowing the climb to Afton is supposedly one of the steepest en route. Instead I fuelled on my new favourite sweetie snack - Swedish Fish.
I had visions of myself pushing my laden bike up a near-vertical incline but actually it was fine. Not too steep just a couple of miles sustained and fine to pedal. This bodes well for tomorrow-take a look at the map below! Each horizontal line is 1000ft. The ride tomorrow will take me onto the blue ridge highway and intersect a few times with the Appalachian Trail, a 2,200 trek through the mountains. I'll leave that challenge to someone else!
Beautiful quiet roads again with the mountains in sight. Car drivers are very patient and courteous here - much more so than in the UK.
I'm staying at the 'Cookie Ladies House' a long standing hostel and rest place for cyclists. Although the Cookie Lady has passed away, others in the village keep it running. The house has turned into a bike and memorabilia musesum. You can see all the postcards that previous cyclists and hikers sent to the cookie lady to thank her for her hospitality (and presumably baked goods). The current owner had one other enquiry for tonight so I may get another cyclist for company later which would be nice.
Tomorrow should be fine weather with a couple of days of rain coming in on Thursday.
But what is a Swedish Fish??
ReplyDeleteSome sort of red sweet thing! I cannot recall seeing any fish like that in Sweden but clearly I was not looking hard enough.
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