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Rest Day in Damascus

Posted by Alan on Wed, 21st Jul, 2010.
Filed under: Virginia

Wed 21st July 2010

We noticed today that we have some more sponsorship money donated to Cancer Research through our ‘Just Giving’ site. So thanks to David and Brenda for those new donations.

Wow, it was so good to have a lay in until 8:00am this morning after waking up at 5:00am for the past two weeks. An early morning shower followed by a fantastic breakfast was the perfect start to the day. We’re staying at the Apple Tree  B&B which is really nice and we are made to feel very much at home by Debbie and Les. Damascus is a great little town to have a day off and the local restaurant cooked up some tasty catfish last night.

Apple Tree B&B - Highly recommended

After breakfast I wandered over the road to Eula’s and had my haircut for the first time in two months. I also tidied up the beard which I now seem to have and feel almost human again. We still have a long way to cycle but we feel very close to the finish now and find it hard to believe how far we’ve come to reach this point.

A gathering of shady ladies - Eula (third from left) cut my hair

We’ve done very little today other than rest, walk around the town a little and chat to Debbie. She even made us a pot of real tea. It’s going to be hard to leave this place.

Damascus Main St - I hope the two in the pick-up have their seat belts on!

Tonight we recieved an email from our cycling friend Ed, who carried on cycling today. He’s recommended a motel we could stay at tomorrow so we may make for there if conditions are good as it’s further than we’d planned to go but still not too far. We’ve also recieved some more offers of accomodation as we near Yorktown so that will make the last few days something special. Our rest day will have done us good and we should set off tomorrow feeling fresh and we’ll definately be on the home straight with just 500 miles to go.

This evening we went back to the local restuarant, Quinceys but just had a bowl of soup and some chips. On our way back to the B&B we then saw the cycling  family we had stayed with in Sebree last week. They caught us up today and are doing incredibly well through this terrain especially as the father, Jim, has ridden with a broken spoke since Berea. It was grreat to see them again and have a catchup. They are even staying at the same B&B so we hope to see them at breakfast too. They will have a late start tomorrow as Jim’s bike must be fixed before they can set off. At least they have a choice of three bike shops here to do the work. It’s great to meet the other cyclists doing this ride and share information and experiences.  And it’s strange to think that we could also go the rest of our lives without ever bumping into another TransAm cyclist once this trip is over.