Day 2: Battlefields and Bailing Weight: Jamestown, VA to Ashland,VA

Camping the first night after a strenuous ride was great. I slept soundly and woke up with only minor soreness. As I mussed about with getting my stuff all organized and packed away I thought again, ‘I’ve got too much crap’. Less stuff is easier to organize, and less time after waking before getting rolling. Fortunately, my dilly dallying gave me a shot of the sun creeping up over the Chickahominy river. You can only see the top because I was impatient to get going. My maps told me that highway 5 between the river and Richmond got very busy, so I figured at 6:00 I’d be beating a lot of traffic.

 

At Malvern hill, I met Tim (Hi Tim!). He has the distinction of being the first person to ask if I was blogging this, so he got my first card. Since I was panting out of breath, the topic of hills and battlefields came up. He pointed out that a lot of Appalacian Trail hikers dump a bunch of weight after the first day and a half. I’ve got to get rid of some crap. Speaking of battlefields, for some reason, there was a gap in the Union line of cannons. So, I reinforced the line.

In the town of Glendale I received a shock that my perspective has already started to shift from this trip. There was a grocery store there in town where I stocked up on victuals. Notably fried chicken. I’d give this fried chicky about a 4 out of 10. But, after 30 miles on a bike, one can add +4 to everything. (It is a magical bike of +4 victual effectiveness). As the clerk rang me up we exchanged the pleasant ‘have a good days’ that smooth relations far better than the theory that an armed society is a polite society. In response to my “have a good day” she replied “for sure I will!” And methoughts, ‘Huh, what day is today?’ Who woulda thunk that after just 2 days of riding I would have already stopped caring about the day of the week? Sweet.

Rolling into Mechanicsville I spotted a Post Office. Suddenly, the concept of the theoretical ‘I might need this thing on my trip.’ changed into, “Have I used this item in the last day and a half?” If not, it’s getting mailed home. The exception of course being bike repair equipment and first aid. I shed 9lbs 8oz from my pack. Including:

-2 shirts
-running shorts (what was I thinking?)
-coffee mug
-200 business cards with blog address (I kept 100)
-extra stuff sack
-wallet
-extra sleeping bag (this isn’t winter camping, after all)
-2 panniers
-pannier attachment hardware
-50mm lens (not shown)

And so I continued on, rolling the last 10 miles with little notable. Except of course, an ice cream sandwich from 7-11. So far, I’m 2 for 2 on ice cream sandwich days. Yum. I also purchased 32oz of ice coffee to fill my Nalgene bottle. Double Yum. Overall, I’m much less tired than yesterday. You can probably tell on account of my witty prose.