Buzzard Point Marina

July 28, 2012
Greetings from Buzzard Point Marina, near Reedville VA.
Well a week has slipped by without any update, or even any typing at all.  A quick check of my last full post shows that we were in Palmyra, after having spent 2 lazy days in Charlottesville.  We left Palmyra and headed off route for an REI store in Richmond, where we were well cared for.  As I have told you in the past, the battery packs that came with our solar panels were somewhat finnicky, and they had ultimately convinced us that neither was really working properly at all.  The great thing about REI is that in addition to having very good quality and prices on all sorts of ourdoor gear, they have a lifetime satisfaction guarantee!  If you ever decide that you don't like the gear, just take it back, so we did.  After looking me up in their database, they cheerfully exchanged not only the battery packs, but the panels as well, because I had purchased them as a package.  Hey, the new packages even included solar powered flashlights, which only one of my purchases had, but was lost sometime in the first week of the trip.
But the best, unexpected thing about our REI visit was Rob, and ultimately his friend Tim Hendron.  Rob asked where we were planning to get to that evening and I told him Mechanicsville.  Rob twisted his face in thought, trying to think of a place to camp anywhere in the general area, but he drew a blank.  That was not too surprising, as the route maps didn't indicate any places to camp either, and they have proven to be pretty thorough in that regard.  So Rob said that he had a friend who lived in Mechanicsville, very close he believed, to the ACA route.  He called said friend (Tim) who told him to send us on over and that we were welcome to camp out in the backyard.  As it turned out, Mechanicsville was a bit ambitious, but we made it nontheless, and I called Tim from his own backyard to tell him that we had arrived.  Tim and his wife Laura were very hospitable, allowing us to shower as well as camp.  Tim also brought out a box fan to blow some air through the tent, as it was indeed a very muggy night.  In the morning, there were 2 slices of cherry pie set out for us.  Another act of kindness from complete strangers, that continued to make the trip more memorable and easier for us.
After Riley wolfed down the pie (cherries rank even lower than hummus for my picky palate) we set out for Williamsburg, which is very near the end of the official route, and also happens to be where my cousins Mary and Christine live.  Mary was gracious enough to host us for 4 nights, although she did have a couple of chores lined up - moving furniture and hanging curtains - so she did receive something in return, but still we got the better end of that deal.  Mary had a full-blown, Thanksgiving style turkey dinner for us when we arrived!  During the visit I also got to spend some good time with cousin Christine, her youngest two children Renee (who became a facebook friend!) and Paul, who is Riley's age and has grand plans to take Hollywood by storm, and her husband Rick.  Rick is a doctor, and unfortunately, I didn't see him after the tick was discovered, but he did give me the established protocol by way of telephone.  Mary and Christine's dad, my uncle Bob was in town and I had my best visit ever with him.
The day after arriving, we planned to ride to Yorktown, to get to the official end of the Transamerica route.  We got a late start, meaning something like 4:00 pm, and by the time we got into Williamsburg proper, we started to get a few raindrops on us.  I looked around and saw a wall of very black clouds racing along in the same direction that we were traveling and a little faster, so I knew that we were in for a serious downpour very soon.  We raced into Colonial Williamsburg and got under cover just about 2 minutes before the clouds opened up, and let loose with the most torrential rain that I have ever experienced.  It definitely would not have been safe to be on the road at that time, as drivers' visibility would have been seriously impaired.  The deluge lasted about 10 minutes before easing off to a moderate rain.  The ironic thing is that because we had anticipated a short afternoon ride, we left our panniers, which included our rain gear, at Mary's house, otherwise we may have ridden in the moderate rain.  About an hour later another, even stronger downpour let loose.  About 15 minutes after that, the rain stopped entirely and we rode back to Mary's, dry and cool.  On Wednesday we started out earlier and did indeed get to Yorktown.  The round trip turned out to be about 45 miles, so it is probably good that we got rained out on Tuesday.  As we were nearing Yorktown, we met a fellow named Justus, who will probably be the last tourist with whom we crossed paths on the trip.  Justus is planning to take the same route that we did in reverse - Yorktown to San Francisco, and was just about 7 miles into his trip.  It was nice to be able to stop and talk to someone else riding the Transam, as we hadn't seen another tourist in quite some time.
I think that after we realized that we had some time to kill, we both got lazy in our minds, hence the extra days in Charlottesville and 4 nights at Mary's, which was at least 1 or 2 more than I had originally anticipated.  By the time that we left Mary's place on Friday, we had used up most of our extra days, so we decided to revert back to plan A, which is to get across the Chesapeake Bay and ride up the Delmarva Peninsula to arrive in Delaware.  Looking at the maps, I saw that there is a ferry that runs between Reedville VA and Chrisfield Maryland, so that is our route, rather than getting ourselves across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, which would also invole another bridge or two that are interstate highways.
We rolled out of Williamsburg on Friday, back to Yorktown and across the Coleman Bridge, which is US 17.  The ride from the north end of the bridge to Gloucester VA was perhaps the most frightening road that I have ever ridden a bicycle on.  Most of the way, there is very little shoulder and the drivers in that part of Virginia are the worst!  Highway 17 is a very busy road and the drivers gave us very little clearance, even when there were two north-bound lanes.  Probably half of the vehicles passed within 3 or 4 feet of us, and a few came within a foot, or at least that's what it seemed like as they flew by at 60 MPH or more.  On the way to Gloucester, we finally did get caught in some rain while we were on the road.  We got off the road and waited it out in the woods next to the highway.  Fortunately the rain didn't last very long, but we donned out rain jackets and did get to ride in them for the last 3 or 4 miles into Gloucester, where we opted to get a room for the night.  At the local Walmart I met a very nice couple who live in a nearby town, but are originally from Czechslovakia.  They were considering doing a cross country tour themselves, so had several questions.  They also invited us to stay at their place that evening, but understood that we probably weren't planning to go that far, as it was already nearing nightfall.
And that brings us to today.  We knew that we only had 50 miles to ride, so we didn't check out and hit the road until noon.  When we did get going it was hot and humid once again, with the temperature between 95 and 100, but we were ready to make a real go of it, and we arrived at our destination with an average speed of better than 15 MPH, which is pretty good for loaded bikes.  Aside from the heat and humidity, this part of Virginia is very beautiful.  The place where we are catching the ferry is basically a little fishing village, with all of the charm that you might imagine.  Our ferry doesn't go directly across the bay, but will be dropping us off on a little island called Tangiers, where we will have a few hours to kill before catching another ferry to Chrisville.  Who knows, we might find that we like Tangiers and stay over night, but that is not currently the plan.
That's about all the news that's fit to report.  I tried to pitch the idea of trading our bikes for a boat, then we could get home via the deep blue sea, but the locals were having none of it.  They were, however, good enough to tell me the password to the marina wifi, so I hope to post this tonight.  Oh, I called our Australian friend Denis this evening. He was back home. He had saddle sores that just wouldn't let up and forced him to call it quits in St. Louis.
Dale