May 23rd Lynchburg VA Port in the storm and tour of Appomattox

Dianne and Charlie Scott turned out to be wonderful hosts. They greeted me warmly and minutes after I got there the skies opened up and it poured down rain. I heated up my dinner while Charlie ate a huge Texas T-bone. We watched baseball and watched it raining outside. More rain was expected on Thursday so I planned to just do a little catching up and play a ride by ear. By midmorning it looked like the afternoon was going to be fairly hit or miss but there was a good chance I could take a ride without getting rained on. I headed to Starbucks to grab their Wi-Fi and plan a route. I found one south of town that toured the back roads and ended up with a spin through the surrender grounds and courthouse at Appomattox.

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After a spin through Appomattox the route continued on through rolling hills and farmlands that were really just beautiful. It was more of a flat route than I have been doing lately and it was a nice change of pace. It ended up being 65 miles and even with the slow touring through the sightseeing areas I still averaged 17 1/2 mph. The person that came up with the route on ridewithGPS did a lot of wandering and the Garmin 810 worked perfectly, telling me where to turn 40 or more times in the course of the afternoon so I could concentrate on what I was seeing instead of where I was going.

That evening, Charlie wasn't feeling well, having come down with the bug that Diane had when I got there. Diane was feeling great again so we went out to dinner at a restaurant along the railroad tracks called the depot grill. The food was good although being serenaded by the brakes of every train car as it went by was kind of shrill. Yet another thunderstorm was building and coming across the mountains towards us. We watched it and tracked it on radar and determined that we would be able to finish dinner at our outdoor table before getting drenched. A couple of tourists that were doing a trip on their Harleys had walked down from their hotel for dinner. I let them know that they wouldn't be able to have dinner before the rains came and they should move inside. They decided to just grab an appetizer and we ended up giving them a ride back to their hotel. Charlie was kind of amused that Diane went out with one strange man and ended up with three. It started to rain as soon as we dropped them off and they were grateful for the ride. We all watched it for another few hours and during that time I went back to Starbucks and planned my route for the morning. It looked like it was going to be a very windy day but clear enough for a ride and just to the north of Lynchburg is a piece of the Blue Ridge Pkwy. that the cyclists call storm of thunder Ridge. With a name like that I just had to do it.