I woke up this morning and grabbed a donut that Sam's mom had left us, and of course got back in bed to eat it, because there's nothing like a bed donut to start your day. (It's kind of like the magical experience of the shower-brew) Cody "wakes up" and rolls over and demands in a sleep-stunned mumble, "what are you doing!??". I reply, "I'm eating a donut". He is incredulous, and rolls back over mumbling "Gaaaaad!!" Apparently the appalling donut-in-bed combined with the early time was too extreme for his mind, and when I recounted his reaction to him 20 minutes later he didn't remember it.
We knew we had a 4 mile climb right out of the motel to get up onto the Blue Ridge Parkway, and after experiencing the intensity the Appalachains brought coming out of western Kentucky we were mentally prepared for a climb up Everest. Of course we took precautions: Cody secured his failing shoe-sole with bright blue duct tape and pounded a mountain dew, I'm pretty sure Sam finished half a gallon of limeade, and I ate macadamia nuts. I'd say we over-prepared mentally for the climb, and to control the excess mental-energy we were left with at the top we each solved pi to 200 digits in our heads, typical.
The Blue Ridge Parkway was beautiful, and the weather was perfect! It did follow the RIDGE line, so there were some healthy ups and downs, but we were home now so it didn't matter. There was also very minimal traffic which made for a nice cruisin ride. We passed a group of 60-70 bikers over about 8 miles who were all wearing purple jerseys and were on a youth-group type trip from Indiana to North Carolina. As Cody described them, the first sets of bikers were drafting like champions so hard they didn't have time to lift a finger, the middle groups waved and said things like "you can do it!", and the last groups panted and said things like "kill me!". The last part of the BRP was a beautiful hill of our favorite type--down, and I almost jumped off my bike at 35 mph when I saw a 3-4 foot snake of some kind slithering across the road in front of me.
Coming off the BRP down Afton mountain was an even steeper and straighter downhill, and if not for the traffic I'm sure we could have pushed 90 mph. At the bottom of the hill we were now in very familiar territory - the road we take to ski practice every week (!) - and we could smell Charlottesville, home sweet home! We blazed into Charlottesville and did no less than 30 victory laps around the statue of Thomas Jefferson in front of the Rotunda. We reminisced about our good ole days at UVA and how we were young once. Oh college, I remember those days so well, somedays it feels like it was yesterday, ahhhhh...
Take that TJ! Shazzam!!We received a glorious and wonderful welcoming in C-ville by all of our friends who were still in town (and some who weren't!) Thanks Ali for taking us in! The RLPT remembers you in its will for your hospitality. We showered at Ali's and then stuffed ourselves at Cici's like we used to in the good ole days (college). More people met up back at Ali's place for festivities and finally, the G-Marc pool and hot tub. We really couldn't have asked for a better night with friends, home sweet home, a relaxing hot tub, and tracing the origins of words back to Romulus and Reemus (typical UVA, don't worry about it).
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