Damascus to Wytheville

Miles Today: 61.66
Average Speed: 8.6mph

Total Miles: 3366.64

We had a rough time getting out of town the morning after our day in Damascus. We headed down to Mojoe’s, the coffee shop where I had spent a portion of the afternoon blogging the day before, and they had a breakfast deal going. We enjoyed good coffee, biscuits and eggs and bacon, and even more conversations with hikers.
When we finally got going, we hopped on the Virginia Creeper Trail, which was listed as an alternative route going out of Damascus.


For the next 11 or so miles, we bumped along a rocky trail. It was quite pleasant at first, until the boy scouts started careening toward us.
The Creeper trail goes uphill in the direction we were headed, but most folks prefer to take it downhill. There are several companies in Damascus that shuttle groups to the top of the mountain, and then send those groups down on bicycles. Unfortunately, many people are not exactly adept in the ways of downhill off-road biking, and the people flying down the trail toward us did not, for the most part, appear to have complete control of their bicycles.


It was a lovely trail, and I got a good chuckle out of the young girl who went rattling past us, feet off the pedals, legs stuck straight out, barely able to reach the brakes, screeching at her friend (who had stopped on the side of the trail) “you didn’t tell me you were stoppppppiiiiinnnnggggggg!!!!!!”
I wish I had been able to take better pictures, but it was quite bumpy and my camera was having a rough ride, too.


We ended up a bit confused after the trail, standing for 20 minutes and trying to figure out where exactly we were, but eventually got going in the right direction. No thanks to the man from SC with TN plates, angrily looking for a place called “Bear Claw Holler”, and many thanks to the nice man from Pennsylvania who looked at our map with us and gave us his educated guess as to where we were.
Today was a milestone for Evan, because this is the day he finally fell off the road. A hiker had asked him the very same morning whether he had ever fallen off the bike. He said that no, he hadn’t, but I think that Evan forgot to knock on wood after saying it because sure enough, I heard an “oof!” from behind me and down he went.
No injuries to Evan, but Elvis did not fare so well. We spent the next ten minutes staring at the gravel in search of an integral part of Elvis.


The King will no longer be able to tune his guitar, because we have forever lost the head of his guitar.


Sorry, Elvis, but the head of your guitar looks a whole lot like a rock, and we couldn’t recover it this time.
We saw a neat leaning church today, which looked pretty dang old.


And we saw a lot of cows, including a cow in front of a house who did not seem interested in getting away from us.


Then we saw a cow with a heart on her head. She was a little more wary, and wandered off before I could get a proper picture.


After many rolling hills and lots of cow-whistling, we reached the town of Rural Retreat.


What a pleasant name for a town. Supposedly there was a hostel here, and since it was already 6pm, we decided to call them just to see if they had space for us. Unfortunately, they were no longer hosting cyclists, so we decided to suck it up and ride the full miles for the day to Wytheville.
On the way, we stopped at a farm shop, where we bought some fresh green beans, local chocolate milk, apple cherry cider, and peach jam. They had a really cool bus out back. I’ll bet you can guess when and where they use it!


Finally, finally, finally, not long before dark, we reached Wytheville.


I had no idea, but this place is the HUB of southwest VA.


We moseyed our way to the park, where a grad party was going on, and set up camp as far from them as possible so as not to bother the proceedings. We discovered this thorny tree in the process. It appears to be something straight out of the woods in Beauty and the Beast.


Our night ended in fresh green beans.


Or so I thought. After our awesome dinner of beans and quinoa and cider, I wandered up to the other pavilion to use the restroom, and the grad party had just broken up. The mother of the graduate was cleaning up, and wondered why we hadn’t come up to party! I told her that two cyclists in spandex wouldn’t have fit in very well with high schoolers in cute dresses, and she told me I was ridiculous. We chatted for a while about her daughter Brandy, who just finished high school and plans to go to the local college for Physical Therapy, and then she sent us off with bottled water, cupcakes, and single-serving bags of chips.
We are so lucky lately. The cupcakes were butterscotch flavored, the water was ice-cold (Evan always craves an icy drink), and we were camped right next to a stream.
We had to spend a bit of time contacting folks in Blacksburg, VA, after realizing that our goal of Christiansburg no longer had any available camping, and once we had taken care of those details, we were fast asleep with the sound of a trickling creek for background noise.