Blogs from Virginia, United States, North America - page 126

I spent the better part of Sunday in a congested fog, and slept on the couch, recovering my strength for the week ahead. Sunday night I ran into a friend and ended up spending the better part of the evening hanging out with him & enjoying his company. Since I had been planning on making homemade powerbars on Sunday evening, I had to put off my baking endeavors until Monday morning. Which meant that I didn't get on my bike & out of town until Monday afternoon. Which meant that I was riding with rush hour traffic, away from Norfolk. I spent quite a bit of time looking at my maps, trying to figure out if there was some way that I could get from Norfolk to Suffolk, Virginia without getting onto a major highway. But ... read more

I started off my day in the western suburbs of Richmond, and even though my host had warned me against riding down Monument Avenue in the morning, I couldn't resist seeing such a shrine to the Confederacy. Well, most people in Richmond would not admit that Monument Ave. celebrates the Confederacy, but would rather insist that it memorializes Virginians. But the vast majority of those memorialized happened to wear Confederate grey. Of course, Monument Avenue has, in the opinion of some, been desecrated by the inclusion of a statue of Arthur Ashe, the great tennis player, who just happened to be African American. The opponents of the Ashe monument just happened to be White Americans, and vociferously denied that their opposition to the Ashe monument had anything to with protecting the memory of slaveowners such as ... read more

The ride out of Charlottesville started out on a brisk note. As I rode down the hill into town, my fingers grew numb with the chilly breeze. I kept thinking back to the warmth of the hospitality I received from Aron and Ted, and their two sons. They opened up their house to me the night before, allowing me to dry out from a wet ride. I spent an hour in their basement cleaning my bike of road grime, and utilized their laundry facilities as well. And I finally got my shoes dry... Before I left Charlottesville I decided to swing by the local library & make a blog entry. With some vague directions, I crawled up and sped down a few hills. I attached my Palm Pilot & GPS receiver to my handlebars to guide ... read more

I can see my breath in the glow of my Palm Pilot screen. Above me the high-tension power lines are humming and the stars are gleaming. Soon the waning moon should rise. I left Leesburg, VA early this afternoon and headed south on Route 15. I rode 50.5 miles today in a little under 3.5 hours, averaging 14.7 miles per hour. With 60 pounds of gear on my bike, that’s a pretty respectable pace. I can’t say that I was really pushing it today, I just maintained a comfortable pace. Around 6 PM I started looking for a place to camp for the night, as Friends were unable to help me with accommodations. I decided to take a more direct route to Charlottesville than otherwise and just camp along the way. After searching around, I settled ... read more

I had decided in 1994 that we would move back to the States as soon as I could find a job. My kids were growing up fast, and I wanted them to grow up in the United States. I didn't want them to experience the same adjustment problems that other expatriot children had as they left they became independent of their parents, and their benefits associated with their employment with the government or multinational corporations (e.g., no citizenship benefits, no work permits or visas). As there were many base closures taking place with people losing jobs, this took longer than I anticipated. I paid for our home leave in 1994 and went through Washington, DC to visit the Pentagon to enquire about taking the position of my counterpart there who was retiring. They had decided to ... read more