The Real Life Protest Tour: Day 41 - Cowboys and Dinosaurs and No Free Ice Cream

A sponser approached us but we declined to maintain our family-friendly image

Distance: 90.0 miles

We left Jon's house at the early hour of 10 am (whoops) and Jon graciously shuttled us back to where he picked us up the night before. Our bikes were still at the IHOP in the same condition we left them in, so that was a pretty solid victory that easily made up for our increasingly late start. It's fun to win without doing anything. It also made us feel a little better about missing out on Megan F....Transformers. We navigated through the morning Christiansburg traffic toward 460, only to find that it fancies itself an interstate these days so we had to pick our way through the business route so we wouldn't get pulled over. So after several U-turns (a nightmare on a busy 4-lane road) we finally escaped the grasp of the Doubleburg situation and hit a much more relaxing (specifically downhill) situation. We rode through the green forests, hills and fields until we came to Elliston, a typical tiny-town-due-to-gas station-presence. After reloading our dragon fuel tanks and a lovely sit in the cool Virginia shade, we hit the road again toward Roanoke.

Now, Roanoke is a pretty decent city, it has all of the good and bad you'd expect of an urban center of its size. However it is not exactly bike friendly. Not even close actually. Fortunately our route was fairly straightforward and we didn't get R-U-N-N-O-F-T the road by any trucks or cars or frenzied BMXers. Still, for all its faults in the "Don't squish cyclists" category, Roanoke does have some seriously great saving graces. Specifically, Sheetz. This gas station/MTO food establishment hybrid is one of the best things to hit southwest Virginia since plumbing, and we made our way to Sheetz like it was the promised land. The existence of $4 footlong subs is close enough to bread from heaven anyway right? So we destroyed our lunch is typical RLPT fashion, sat around and groaned about it for awhile, and finally got back in the saddle for the second part of the day.

I don't care who you are, it's impossible.

Fortunately we made it through most of Roanoke before lunch so as soon as we left Sheetz we were back in the country, full of trees, mountains, and Highway 81. Pressing onward we passed through a great deal of familiar territory, a rather surreal experience as we slowly moved our way through land we've collectively seen as least 284 times from a car window. It's a little different when you see (and earn) every bloody inch of that ground. We eventually came to Natural Bridge (serious ATT) to take a quick rest and were rejected in our attempt to accrue ice cream free of charge. Also they had at least one statue featuring a cowboy riding a dinosaur, and as a history scholar I've ascertained that cowboys did not even LIVE with dinosaurs, much less ride them. Natural Bridge, you need to try researching once in a while. Leaving the gross anachronisms behind, we then headed toward Buena Vista (pronouced Byoo-nuh Vi-sta, not Bway-nah Vee-sta, this is Murica)

Finally after riding wildly (see photo) though the woods toward our destination, we made it to a huge park where we met my mom who generously prepared a colossal spread of edibles, which we tore into with much vigor and barbarism. After many tons of chicken, watermelon, and strawberry yogurt pie, we were finally ready to call it a day. Thanks Mom! We moved on the Buena Vista Motel, where we once again relished some showers and real beds. Good night sleep--Blue Ridge Parkway tomorrow and CHARLOTTESVILLE!