Halloween in Charlottesville, VA

Miles Today 40; This Section 190 (7 days); Trans-Am Miles 1032.1 (30 days)

We passed the thousand-mile mark today. We have now pedaled a little less than 1/3 of the way across the nation. I’m very pleased.

We drove back to the I-64 crossing and started pedaling at 8:05 AM. The temperature was 45 degrees and the sky blue. I wore the long johns, the long john top, the windbreaker, and the winter cycling gloves. Alton had warned that there were hills now all the way to the Blue Ridge. For the first 5 miles or so it was relatively flat with a little rolling of 50-foot hills. I like that. Soon, however, the hills got a little steeper and I needed my lowest 3 gears (of 27) and some serious hard pedaling. But I liked that too, as it was nice to pedal some hills and have functioning gears. I worked up quite a sweat and changed from the winter gloves to the summer and from the windbreaker to the nylon vest. We got to Kent’s Store the post office for the Martin’s some 5 miles from their home. There was a post office and three houses, and no store at all! I expected more.

It was all beautiful backcountry roads and little traffic and fun riding. At 30 miles or so I came to an historic marker indicating Ash Lawn the plantation of President Monroe just 3 miles or so outside of Charlottesville. His next-door neighbor was Thomas Jefferson at Monticello some 1 mile further along the trail. We’re going to visit these places on the way home next week also. It’s of interest that Monroe first owned the property of the University of Virginia and he and Jefferson were founding fathers of the university.

Soon after passing Ash Lawn and before Monticello I turned onto State Route 53 from County Route 795. Suddenly we had traffic. SR 53 switchbacks up over the mountain to the Monticello entry road. At places the road is just two lanes wide with no berm, no shoulder, and a tight guardrail. That is, there is no room for a biker, a bike, or a person; and the cars are zooming along. The grade was so steep I couldn’t pedal, and the lower my gears the less straight line the steering. So I walked facing the traffic. As they came around the turns I’d look directly into the center of the grill! I got to the top safely and was standing by the side road to Monticello when a young woman in a sport car and wearing a witch’s black cone hat shouted out the window, “This road is not safe for bikes. Go up on the parkway.” She was certainly right as to the safety issue, but I didn’t know of any parkway around here. So when the traffic seemed to slack, I started down the other side of the mountain away from Monticello toward Charlottesville. I got up to 32 MPH on the winding road and one car came up behind me after about half a mile and I “took the lane” as my expert Dr. Dick Weaver taught me so he could not pass. These Virginia drivers are the most patient I have seen so far and he (she) staid back as we cruised down at 30 mph another half mile to some famous tavern formerly frequented by Jefferson and Monroe and I pulled off to allow my benefactor to pass. It was then just another half mile of safe road to the I-64 crossing and my awaiting TB. We loaded up and proceeded to the “coupon motel” he had found.

At the motel we found a real Oriental Laundry (was it Chinese?) next door and for $9.50 they washed and folded our laundry while we showered and got off to the U of VA kids Halloween at the commons ground. Like all major Universities the traffic near the Rotunda was significant (the TB said horrible!); but, like always, I found a parking space only a block away. It bothered the TB since the sign said, “permit only parking 7-5” and it was 4 o’clock. So we parked.

We entered the commons grounds (they don’t say campus here, it’s grounds) and there were hundreds of kids walking along the sidewalk as the students handed out candy from the doors of their rooms. It was a wonderful sight. If these kids aren’t all liberal, our country is in good hands.

The buildings around the commons grounds are dorm rooms. I would say the grounds are 100 feet wide and 300 feet long with rectangular buildings all around. The buildings are only about 20 feet deep and the length of the field along the sides. There’s a room every twenty feet. We peeked in the front door and could see the back door opposite just 15-20 feet away. Some of the rooms were 3 beds, a desk, a laptop computer, a TV, and nothing else we could see. The TB said if they open both doors at once everything blows out. The Martin’s said these kids are all seniors of distinction who earned these choice and prestigious rooms. The TB said when he went to college in 1941 if they offered him such a room he would have turned it down! There was also a juggler, better than me. It looks like a wonderful tradition.