5/30 - Summersville, WV - 73 miles: We literally rode up and down 5 mountain passes! It was challenging but absolutely beautiful-trees, rivers, mountains, flowers, etc. and biking puts you at the perfect speed to be able to appreciate it. I almost bonked on this day because I assumed lunch would be half-way through but it really ended up being more at mile 42. I learned from in though. If you start to get hungry, go ahead and eat! The beginning of our ride actually began by going up a mountain and then in led up to a scenic highway. I rode up with Noah and we were surrounded with fog and could barely make out the green shadows of trees. The top of the mountain led us to a scenic highway and we met up with all the other members and rode pretty much together which was awesome. We also had a few members of our team do a bit of riding in the nude. That night we stayed at a Christian Academy which was about five miles away from a lake so we got to take advantage of that. Unfortunately, Joe and I lost against Aileen and Derrick in a game of chicken. Again, we had excellent hosts who provided us dinner and then a deluxe breakfast of biscuits and gravy. My smile muscles seem to be getting stronger on this trip.
5/31 - Charleston, WV - 79 miles: Today seemed like an easy day in comparison with the past two days because our mountains were replaced with lots of downhill and smaller hills. Our ride was scenic, yet again, and we were riding mostly alongside a river where we passed by little clumps of houses. It seemed to be a trend to have a bridge leading to your house over the small river as well as having dogs. None of the dogs were too threatening though. After lunch a few of us rode past a lady who was tending to her horses outside and we stopped to chat. She was extremely friendly and offered us water. She also told us all about her horses and how much she appreciated having them. Apparently she was diagnosed with terminal cancer three years ago and she swears that it is her horses that have kept her alive this long. Every day it seems that we meet people that have amazing stories to tell. People are awesome. In Charleston we stayed in an Episcopal church which also acts as the local food kitchen for the area. They serve around 200-300 people breakfast a day! That night, after they served us a delicious dinner, we gave them a presentation and they gave us a presentation on Green Works which is a sustainable housing organization that educates all of the people that deal with the building process (architects, contractors, etc.) Oh yeah! A guy from a WV news station came to do a story on us and I was filmed biking in the parking lot!
6/1 - Huntington, WV - 50 miles: Today was much shorter and flatter still. The quality of road was not too much better though and did not allow for much conversation. It feels strange that any day under 70 miles has now become "easy." On our way out of Charleston we decided to explore a bit and rode down to the Capitol! Charleston is a very neat city and I would love to explore it more. We got in to town pretty early and some of us went to explore town, others went to explore Marshall (the University,) and some just decided to chill out. I went and got some excellent ice coffee with some friends and we ended up talking to 2 different pairs of people at the shop. Meeting new people all the time is awesome and we all love to share what we are doing. Later we were provided with Jimmy John's by a church member and then headed back downtown where we got ice cream and looked in a book store. Another note is that the church we were staying in was five stories with an atrium and big game room. Crazy!
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