Day 7 – Wytheville to Meadowview/Abingdon

For day 7, we had to leave the wonderful town of Wytheville behind and head to Meadowview… or Abingdon… or rather, Abingdon by way of Meadowview.

Another cool, foggy morning today. Looking at the weather for the next few days, I think it may have been our last before summer seriously sets in. Started out the morning with the GPS fully charged and the NiteRider 650 on “super blinding seizure blink” mode. Seriously, the 650 is a bright light. On blink mode, it brings out the candy ravers.

Not kidding, it was foggy. You can sorta see the end of the parking lot.

The fog broke by about 9am and it was a beautiful day for a ride. I think I’ve said it about a dozen times already, but this route is beautiful. There were some amazing views today and lots of wildlife, flowers, trees, and run down barns.

We had two fairly high peaks to reach in the Jefferson Nat’l Forest, but thankfully the pitch was very manageable. We were done with both major climbs by 11 and had an early lunch. JP and I reached the summit of the second climb together, but Heidi wasn’t quite ready with the camera. What you see below is a recreation of the event after we finished lunch.

The remaining 30 miles was mostly downhill. We rode through Damascus VA which apparently is a big town for fishing, canoeing, and bike tours on the Virginia Creeper Trail. There were 100’s of people on bikes there, mostly rentals. As JP pointed out, however, we were the only road bikes in the bunch.

The ACA route takes us through Meadowview (our stop for the day) but sadly there is no hotel on the route. The closest hotel Heidi could find was down the road in Abingdon. JP hitched a ride from Meadowview with Art. I decided to push on the last 8 miles on US 11 and ride to the hotel. I was pretty spent, but US 11 was _fast_ in that stretch and it was nice to be out of the hills for a bit.

Abingdon has a lot to offer. It’s home to the Virginia State Theatre (the Barter Theatre). There’s a rich music scene here; in fact there was a music festival going on downtown. There’s also quite a number of artists that call the Abingdon area home. We stopped by The Arts Depot and chatted with a few of them… they were very hospitable and  loved the kids. Bobby took time and voted for his favorite photos in their photography contest. One of the artists called him a “budding art critic” which may have embarrassed him a bit.

Afterwards, we had milkshakes made from cupcakes… let that sink in for a second. Babycake Cupcakes in Abingdon will take a cupcake, put it in a shake maker with ice cream and milk, and blend it in to a shake. It was seriously unbelievable. Like, potentially the best shakes any of us had ever had. Crazy.

We finished off with dinner at the Barter Cafe. Light fare but yummy. JP and I worked on our plan for tomorrow. We are climbing Hayter’s Gap. Aptly named as its a 3.5 mile climb with 1,500′ of vertical. For those doing the math at home, that’s an average 8% grade. Yep. Can’t wait. Till tomorrow…