Another beautiful day in the neighbourhood! I quite liked the Holiday Inn Express that we stayed at last night. The folks who run it obviously are committed to running a first-class operation. It was a nice sunny day when we pulled away shortly after 9am. Within the first mile or so we crossed the Appalachian Trail once again.
After 2 miles on a fairly major highway, we turned off onto a secondary road and did a bit of climbing before settling into a valley that paralleled a railroad for about 10 miles. The advantage of sharing the terrain with the railroad is that the grades are pretty gentle.
And we found a playground at the first SAG stop.............
Into the town of Buchanan and across the James River. Also saw the "swinging bridge" across the river.
We climbed for a bit after the James River and rode some pretty good (big/steep) rollers while paralleling Interstate 81. We then had a nice 14 mile run on Plank Road......
....... and on into Lexington VA.
I met a local woman while stopped to take the picture above and she recommended that I visit the Lee Chapel on the campus of Washington & Lee University. So glad she did! Seems this is quite the hub of history. Both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are buried in Lexington. In fact, all of General Lee's family are buried in the crypt in the chapel. A very friendly woman (a mountain biker in her70's) was happy to share lots of info in the chapel. The grounds of the historic university are just beautiful!
There's also another large educational institution here - VMI (Virginia Military Institute), but no time to explore.
A wonderful shrimp curry for dinner, and a big day getting up to the Blue Ridge Parkway tomorrow.
Stats for the day:
Distance: 46.02 miles / 74.06 km
Elevation (Garmin): 3032' up, 3261' down / 924m up, 994m down
Elevation (RWGPS): 861m up, 934m down.
Weather: Perfect! Temps 9C to 22C. Bright sunshine all day. Winds were not a factor. Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida today, and the longer term forecast for our route does not look good as of Saturday. Hopefully it will change for the better.
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