The first, and worst, of the hills loomed some distance west of Charlottesville, where the rolling Piedmont ascended onto the Blue Ridge, the eastward-most extension of the Appalachian Mountains. Rumor from other cyclists had it that I was about to encounter some of the most demanding terrain of the entire route.
And while I hadn’t reached those hills yet, this day was not an easy day, either, as the riding proved the most grueling thus far. As promised by the guidebook, the route was a “roller coaster,” a series of seeming endless ups and downs. By the time I was within 100 yards of Monticello, going up .. and up U.S. Route 53, I “like to died,” in the local parlance.
The scenery was some compensation, however. I was moving away from the drab areas near the coast and into the thick of the history-rich south. Several old homes, in particular, appealed to my literary preconceptions. One such home, on SR 619 near SR 761, was so rich with character that I felt I had stepped into a Faulkner novel, so overgrown, lived-in, loved, broken-down, and seductive did it appear.
And everywhere I looked were lovely, tanned, smiling young women.
This was the South of my imagination: ripe, fecund, easy-going, against a backdrop of beautiful decay.
And the people were so nice. After stopping for a lemonade on the outskirts of Charlottesville, I rang the cheapest campground in the guidebook; the woman on the phone was so warm and solicitous that I almost wept when I hung up.
I then found my way to a local camping supply store, Blue Ridge Mountain Sports, hoping they could diagnose a problem with my little camp stove, which had stopped working. Not only did they fix it free of charge, but one of the salesmen who saw my Northfield Mt. Hermon T-shirt turned out to be both a graduate and a former teaching fellow.
The day’s final piece of happy luck visited me while I was stopped outside a downtown shopping mall, repacking my overstuffed panniers. A voice at my elbow said:
“How y’all doing? Where y’all headed?”
Jim, a friendly and interested fellow, himself a veteran of bike touring, soon discovered that “y’all” was just me, and that I needed a place to stay for the night. Yes, I readily agreed, sleeping on his sister’s sofa would suit me just fine, and, no, taking a shower at her place would be no hardship either.
As it turned out, Jim’s sister and her roommates, coeds at the University of Virginia, just happened to have accommodations at their off-campus apartment, and some spare dinner as well, and also had access to laundry facilities. Only a week away from home, I was already dazzled by the simple pleasures of civilization, no less than by the fact that these three attractive young women were willing to usher me into their home.
College towns, I discovered more than once along the way, were bonanzas of freebies and of people my age, who were interested in my journey and who were usually willing to do what they could to provide support.
I lingered on in Charlottesville for a second day, utterly seduced by the beauty of the town and the UVA campus, and by the friendliness of my hosts. But by end of the day on the 25th, I was itching to move on.