Day 13: Wytheville to Damascus (60 miles)

July 13th, cloudy and light shower in morning, a few heavy rains in afternoon

After resting in Wytheville for a full day (and upload all the pictures), I felt energetic so I woke up early. It was cloudy and cool in the morning, just perfect weather for biking.

The morning section was pretty much uphill. Some slopes were pretty steep that even big trucks had problems going up. And the roads were narrow so I couldn't just pass them. I got stuck on the raod near Sugar Grove for about half hour.

The sun came out later in the afternoon.

Fortunately that I was about to enter the Mt. Roger Nationa Reacreation Area. The surround was cooler because of the trees. I passed by a couple campsites and hiking trails. The picture on the right is a "hourse campground". Cool, isn't it?

The TransAmerica Trail intersection with the Appalachian Trail within the Recreation Area. One of my dreams is to spend six months walking across America along the Appalachian Trail.

When I finished climbing up the hill, the weather became pretty unstable. By looking at the cloud I could tell it's going to rain. I was close to a campsite so I stopped by its office. The host was pretty nice so we chatted a little bit

And take a look at this. The host told me that hanging water in transparent bags can avoid flies! I'm going to try it sometime.

The rain leasted for only half hour and I continued my trip. The picture in the left is just a funny sign that I saw on the road. On the right, you can see the stream rising up after the rain. I felt horrible when riding in such a condition. It's like I was put in a steam cooker.

Besides the steaming part, the speedy downhill was fun. It was pretty much along a river.

At evening, I finially arrived "the Place", a pretty cool hostel shared by AT (Appalachian Trail) hikers amd TA (TransAmerica) bikers.

I was hopping to meet some fun people there. I probably arrived too late, the hikers were already in bed. I ended up picking a bed upstairs to avoid waking the hikers up. The right picture is the "living room" taken from the next morning.