45 miles
I hit the road early in the morning again. This may have been the earliest start of the trip. It was around 6 A.M..
About 10 miles in I reached the town of Vesuvius and a local who saw me near an intersection studying my map informed me that there was a combined store and cafe not on my map that was about a 1/4 mile past my turn toward the Blue Ridge. Despite not really wanting to lose the time I decided to head there since it did not look like there were many opportunities during the rest of the day to eat anything other than what I was carrying. After a good breakfast, which I spent at the counter talking with the owner, I headed back toward the last significant climb of my trip.
Sometime during the last few days I started associating the name of the closest town with this climb. In my mind the climb itself was the ominous sounding "Vesuvius". In terms of elevation gain it was minor but according to the map it went up around 2000 feet in about 4 miles, which is a darn steep grade. I sweated buckets but only stopped once during the climb when I caught up with Vreny about a quarter mile from the top.
After some confusion about which way to head on the Blue Ridge Parkway we got headed in the right direction. The map said to turn left on the parkway but it was actually left then right. In terms of scenery I had expected this to be just another hill in Virginia and was stunned by how beautiful the area is.
The view shortly after turning onto Blue Ridge Parkway:
Rolling along the parkway:
Vreny catching up to me after I stopped to get a photo of the farm below:
Unfortunately my camera just did not like the scene below and this is the best shot I got of it. It looked much better in real life.
More of the Blue Ridge Mountains:
20 Minute Cliff is a rock cliff that people who life in the valley below it use as a timepiece:
Although shoulders were non-existent traffic was light and road was smoother than anything else in Virginia. There was also a good amount of shade along the way.
I think this is a view of 20 minute cliff from across the valley but am not 100% sure.
The view toward the north. The towns in view should be Sherando, Lyndhurst and Waynesboro.
More messing with the panorama function at one of the pull outs:
Between the drop down from the Blue Ridge and Afton there was really nothing worth photographing. At Rockfish Gap I managed to go the wrong way on 250 and went about a mile downhill toward Waynesboro before turning around and getting back on track. Shortly after that I reached Afton and the home of the Cookie Lady where I would be spending the night.
June Curry, a.k.a. the Cookie Lady, started giving cookies and drinks to cyclists who passed through Afton during the 1976 Bikecentennial ride and continued the practice until 2012 when she passed away at age 91. Her daughter, Hope, has kept the house/museum open for cyclists to stay in. If you google her name you will get quite a bit more about her.
Since I took quite a few pictures this day and almost none the next I am going to include the pictures of the inside in my day 61 post.
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