Rosedale, VA to Breaks, VA
47 miles
We finally did make it to the post office and mailed home a measly 3.6 lb box. Psychological weight, really. There in line, one pierced young woman laid out the gender reality of our trip by exclaiming, “Whoa! You’re a chick! That’s so cool! I only ever see guys.” True, we too have only seen male cyclists. Women are certainly the minority on the Transam and two women alone is a real novelty, apparently. People seem to be protective of us – we get a lot of: “Be safe”, “Be careful” – and we wonder if this has more to do with being women, or cyclists on busy roads. A woman a few days earlier asked: “Do you have sidearms?” We did need their well wishes, as we vied with holiday traffic on the shoulder-less road up to Breaks Interstate Park (so-called not because it lies next to a big highway, but because it spans Virginia and Kentucky). The park itself covers some beautiful country and has the deepest gorge this side of the Mississippi. We were less impressed with our accommodations. We never figured out if it was because we asked for a “tent site” as opposed to a “campsite”, or rather we were the victims of sold-out holiday capacity. Assigned to a small sloping field that we shared with a half-dozen other tents and a water faucet, we were exiled to this no man’s-land which was literally 1.5 miles to the bathroom. Each of the “normal” campsites enjoyed FLAT land, a picnic table, and a short stroll to the bathrooms, On the plus side, the park has a restaurant that overlooks the gorge, where we availed ourselves of the all-you-can-eat dinner buffet for $11.95 - a hungry cyclist’s dream.
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