Day 5: This is a ROCKIN' 99 cent gas station hamburger!

Lexington, VA to Troutville,VA

Stats!
Total miles biked today: 49.9
Total miles biked on trip so far: 234.3 (we passed the 200 mile mark! yay!)
Max speed: 26.5 mph (steep hills means you ride the brakes)
# of dogs that chased us: 2
# of meals consumed: 4
and a first! -- first other trans am tourist we met on the road (Bruce)

Our new attitude really helped us have a great day today. It really was a fantastic day from start to finish. However, I will go ahead and get the bad news out of the way first. I have sun poisoning and saddle sores. BOO. But we have a rest day coming up very soon, so if I can just make it through tomorrow, we can hide in the dark and salve my butt. :)

We got up early this morning, giving us a reasonable jump on the day. The first part of the ride was *beautiful*. Babbling brooks and white horses and rolling green hills -- fairy tale stuff. It was great. Bunnies followed us on the trail. We passed badgers and chipmunks. We did see one HUGE black snake just hanging out in the road, but he was totally chill and we just passed him. We also saw a cat who was standing in the road, but when (s)he saw us, (s)he just lay down in the road and took a nap. Very odd.

A lot of today's trail followed a railroad, and we saw an abandoned train station that was overrun with vegetation. Also, lots of just chimneys were along the trail. The train went by and the conductor waved at us. Nice!

The terrain was much more gentle today. We still had a lot of significant elevation ups and downs, but they were more gradual. Only a couple of really tough hills today. I am beginning to think we are going to have to walk through all of Kentucky, but we'll make it! (I hope)

About ten miles into the trip today, we made it to a gas station. We were both almost out of energy. Dean wanted to buy $4 trail mix. Then we both noticed the 99 cent refrigerated hamburgers. A much better value. So we each got a burger, and decided to split a Powerade. The burgers were DELICIOUS. I mean, I know we were hungry, but they were just the thing. Hit the spot and allowed us to make it to our real lunch spot in Buchanan (pronounced "Buck cannon"), which was called "The Fountain Sandwich Fountain." Awesome.

Buchanan was a really cute town. After that, it was a lot of nothing. And by a lot of nothing, I mean a lot of elderly men riding lawn mowers around several acres of land. We must have seen three dozen of them. Today was clearly lawn maintenance day in Botetourt County (pronounced "Bot-eh-tot").

After we got to Troutville, we realized we must have made a wrong turn as this is in fact Pleasantville. Everyone has been eerily nice to us. We got a free place to camp, free showers, a free kitchen (if we want it), dinner recommendations (the Country Cookin', which was a recommendation we took), and wildly varying advice on how to cure sun poison. As I was just blogging, a Troutville resident stopped by our tent in the park to bring me aloe. We are big news in Troutville, and she'd heard in the market that a bike tourist had sun poison, so she stopped by with aloe from her plant. SUPER nice, and desperately needed.

Later, at the Thriftway, I got a slim jim, and it was the best thing I'd ever eaten, after the 99 cent gas station burger, of course.

Anyway, I think we're both really glad we decided to soldier on. It was a really fun day. Tomorrow our goal is Blacksburg, where we'll have our first rest day. Thanks for reading, and for all the encouraging comments on our last post!