Day 5: Hale's Farm to Charlottesville, VA

Thursday May 24, 2012,  46 miles - Total so far: 198 miles*
    * Miles ridden on the TransAm route
    Odometer miles - Today - 45.8   Total to date - 228.4 miles

Prelude to the Blue Ridge

First, some unfinished business from yesterday's blog entry (I think of lots to include each day, but then try to edit it down to a reasonable length.  Sometimes I leave out something I really intended to include.)  After our wine tasting on Wednesday I purchased two bottles of wine for the group to share at dinner that evening.  On my last day at work, May 17th, my coworkers treated me to a great going-away picnic and gave me a very generous monetary gift.  I used a portion to purchase the wine to share with our group - thank you to all of my former coworkers!

Thursday's ride was another very nice, scenic ride in very good weather.  There were a few more hills - some steeper, short bumps and some longer hills that were not too steep.  Near the end of the ride, as we approached Charlottesville, we crested a rise and got a view of the valley below with the Blue Ridge range in the distance.  It was a nice view, but a reminder that Friday's ride will climb to and ride along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Sneak preview of the Blue Ridge

Near the end of today's ride we passed Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello.  I didn't stop there since I've been before, but most of the group did.  It's a sight well worth visiting.  Just beyond Monticello and just outside Charlottesville is Michie Tavern, a historic roadhouse restaurant.  They serve an all-you-can-eat southern style lunch of fried and baked chicken, green beans, black-eyed peas, coleslaw and biscuits.  I ate more than I needed and finished off with a delicious peach cobbler.  This was another place I first visited on my 1976 ride and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to stop there again.

Michie Tavern

After lunch I rode the last couple of miles to our overnight location, the Alexander House Inn and Hostel.  It's luxury compared to the last two camping nights.  We have the whole facility, a house where the women are sleeping and a bunkhouse for 6 in the back for the men.  Two bathrooms and showers, wi-fi, bedding and towels provided so we don't have to use our own.  Living the high life!

Our bikes, parked at the Alexander House Inn and Hostel - bunkhouse on the left, main house on the right

Our bunkhouse at the Alexander House Inn and Hostel

When I arrived I put up my tent and got it and the fly dried out, having been put away wet in the morning.  I got my shower and caught up on a few things.  Then at 5:00 pm my dad's cousin Diane, who my wife and I had dinner with last Friday evening, picked me up to go to her house for dinner.  Diane is my first cousin once removed (according to my genealogist wife) and the daughter of my great-uncle Allan, who I wrote about in an earlier entry.  Very conveniently she lives in Charlottesville and she had invited me when we got together last Friday.  She and her husband Steve fed me a great dinner and dessert and we had a wonderful visit.  Thanks, Diane and Steve!