Still Virginia

---

Wednesday 14^th

Out of Christiansburg we were immediately onto a freeway for around 20 miles to re-link with the route. Then, off the freeway onto the BDR route where we were soon into Jefferson Forest. Immediately we saw a sign to a

an old covered bridge. This one was quite ordinary but very old. The Eastern States have a lot of these and some are very old and ornate. The purpose of covering the bridge was to protect the timbers from the elements. Seems a lot of work but the fact that many have lasted hundreds of years is proof it works. The trees here are, (according to Google) primarily Appalachian hardwood and mixed pine-hardwood. At this point it was a nice winding sealed road through these forests and after probably 20 miles we came to Mountain Lake Lodge which is located in the New River Valley of the Appalachian Mountains. This historic lodge might look familiar to you.(see photo) It was where the iconic movie Dirty Dancing was filmed. We looked around from the outside, tried a few dance steps and then back into the forests for more great roads which soon turned to gravel. At one point there was a clearing with a lawn & house or shed & 2 deer were just standing there around 30 metres away watching us ride through. Seemed quite used to traffic. A little further on a stag with a decent set of antlers ran across the road in front of Ian.

We saw a few more deer including one that was grazing on the side of the road and scarpered up the bank as soon as I arrived. If it had stood still I would never have seen it. Their camouflage is excellent – I noticed the movement more than saw it. We eventually reached around 4000' on this road and were treated to spectacular views out over the forests and mountains.

The gravel road got a bit gnarlier as we progressed on, although was still enjoyable riding. At one point they had dumped thick gravel onto the road for around 3 or 4 miles . I guess for 4 wheel drives this is better than mud or hard dirt but for us riding this squirmy thick gravel takes a lot of concentration. Fortunately, no incidents.

By now we had come out of the Jefferson Forest and were now riding in the George Washington National Forest. These two forests are huge - covering more than 1.8 million acres of land. More gravel roads/trails/ ruts/puddles/small stream crossings before we emerged onto a highway where we had Taco Bell for lunch.

After leaving here our route took us through more forests, past farming areas including one expensively fenced property that had a huge Mansion of a ranch-house, massive implement sheds and barns plus a sealed airstrip all sited on beautifully manicured lawns. No Ssock to be seen so not sure if this is a working or hobby farm or maybe a front for a totally different business?

We left the BDR route and rode 28 miles into the town of Staunton as we had ascertained this would be our best chance of accommodation. A couple of lodgings we had found on the GPS, we established were no longer in business, so after a few aimless laps of this large town we ended up staying on the outskirts at a Super 6 Motel.

390kms today of great tracks today with enough challenges to keep us alert and enough linking sealed roads to give us the occasional break.

---