About 75 miles.
I followed a path that included a 21 mile back track:
Chickahominy campground to Jamestown to Williamsburg to Yorktown to Williamsburg to Jamestown then a ferry to Scotland before going on to Smithfield.
This was a beautiful day. After briefly getting a bit lost in the Five Forks area Vreny and I made our way onto the Colonial Parkway. It is a very scenic road that runs from just north of Jamestown all the way to Yorktown (the official end of the Transamerica bicycle trail). The picture below is of the James River and was taking right around the time we picked up the trail.
Farm along the Colonial Parkway:
Riding here was wonderful. The road was three lanes wide (no lines) but only had one lane of traffic going each way. No crossing roads interrupted it. They all went overhead on these brick overpasses:
Just outside Williamsburg:
Downtown Williamsburg:
Revolutionary war era buildings:
The Governor's Palace and Gardens, formerly occupied by Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson:
Less than 10 miles to Yorktown:
Yorktown:
Victory Monument in Yorktown is the official end of the TransAmerica Bike Trail. Since I am one of the few folks that can't quite accept that as being at the Atlantic Ocean I decided to end my ride one day later at Virginia Beach. The picture above of what appears to be open water is actually the view across a very large rive outlet toward another piece of land. That didn't stop me from celebrating a bit though. Below are some pictures at Victory monument. The monument was built to celebrate victory in the Revolutionary War.
Done with the official trail:
After we had lunch at a restaurant along the beach I headed back toward Williamsburg and Jamestown where I was to pick up a ferry to Scotland (no, not that Scotland. Scotland, VA). This was the end point for Vreny and she headed off toward her hotel to celebrate. Her husband was coming in from Switzerland the next day and they were going to tour Virginia (by car).
Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures between Yorktown and Smithfield. Leaving Yorktown I backtracked through Williamsburg before reaching Jamestown and I guess the 20 or so miles of seeing what I had just covered in the opposite direction put me out of the picture taking mode.
In Jamestown it started to pour and I ended up under a shelter near a bike trail for about two hours while I waiting for the rain to pass. It was one of the more frustrating moments of the entire trip. I was seriously P.O.d at times and cursing the clouds. I had been thinking of possibly just knocking out the entire trip to VA Beach that day but the rain and lightning put an end to that idea.
While waiting in the rest area I encountered more of the endless generosity I have experienced along the way. A husband and wife whose names I unfortunately do not remember were out for a ride and ducked under the rest stop roof with me. We talked for a bit and after the rain died down a bit they made a dash for their car, which was parked a mile or so away. About 15 minutes later they reappeared with their car and offered me a sandwich, a bag of grapes and a couple of bottles of water. It was a nice offer that put me back in a decent mood.
After the rain had stopped for 15 minutes or so I headed off toward the ferry, which took me across the James River to Scotland. I spent the next 5 hours or so riding winding VA backroads between there and Smithfield in a continuous drizzle. I got myself slightly lost several times since I was operating from a not fully flushed-out set of instructions and much of the ride was through very rural areas. A few days prior I had called Adventure Cycling Association and asked if they had any maps showing a route between Yorktown and Va beach. They acknowledged that it was a somewhat common request but didn't have any routes that they really knew worked. They ended up sending me directions that other cyclists had posted on a blog. They had quite a few errors but between those directions and the navigation app on my phone I was able to get into Smithfield where I found....not a single hotel that was not full. After stopping at and/or calling a half dozen, whose desk workers all told me I would find nothing, I started to resign myself to a stealth camp in the woods. On the way out of town, now in the dark, I stopped by an Econolodge that I had tried to call 3 or 4 times without anyone ever picking up. I wasn't expecting to get a room but gave it a try and lo and behold they had two rooms, both smoking (ugh). I took one anyway and gorged on a calzone and some other thing delivered by a nearby Italian restaurant before heading to bed.
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