Rain Drives Us Off the Road

Miles Today 10.0; This Section 69.0 (3 days); Trans-Am Miles 911.1 (26 days)

We awakened refreshed from our first time on the sleeping pads in more than a month. It rained a little at 9 PM so we were glad to be indoors. We ate some cereal and got going rather late after packing up all the gear. I made a mile to the gas station and had a cup of coffee. I should not have wasted the time, as we knew rain was coming and I needed the mileage. A fellow at the station said it was raining in Richmond some 20 miles west and I was soon going to be wet. I knew the TB would not be far behind, so I took off up route 156 to see how far I could get. The road was nice and rolling. The rolling road seems easier than a perfectly flat road and the gears are shifting perfectly now even the lowest ones. This is making the climbs much easier and would have helped a lot out west in Montana and Idaho.

I began to get closer to the bedroom communities around Richmond. The route comes into the southeast of Richmond and then goes nearly straight north to pass north of the city headed west making about a 2/3 circle somewhat along I-295 the Richmond Beltway. But most of the route is still quite countrified. Finally near the junction of I-295 and I-64 at Grapevine Road the rain came in earnest and the TB loaded me into the pickup after just 10 miles for the day.

We were now just 53 miles from daughter Jody’s house and tomorrow would be rain all day so we decided to take our zero day at her place. We drove some 20 miles down to Ft. Lee and picked up the TB’s car and took it up to Jody’s for storage.