Day 59 - Ice Cream Before Dinner (Again) - (July 30th, 2024)

City To City: Draper - Troutville

Miles: 74

Miles Total: 3,988

Flats: 13

Video: https://youtu.be/diUEy4mxKE8?si=vOSVOK9fWkgpjvXE

Eating Ice Cream Before Dinner (A Bad Habit!)

    That morning, we had a wonderful breakfast: bagels, breakfast bars, and cereal.  Curtis and Jenny gave us a bottle of wine, and we soon left.  Henry left ahead of us so we didn't have to wait as long while Henry was getting his phone screen fixed. My dad had told Matt and Mark to meet up at 8 am.  Well, we weren't ready at the time.  So, we were hustling, and Matt and Mark went to get some coffee while they waited for us.  So, things got off to a rough start.  My dad thought Matt and Mark were ahead, but then we got a text from them saying that they were at the park and for us to let them know when we were ready.  But, we were already on the road ahead of them!  So, we waited until they caught up, and my dad offered to cut off eight miles.  

    Then Mark's front shifter on his bike didn't function.  So, when we get to the gas station in town, I get donuts for us while Mark calls a bike shop, and my dad is wondering about Henry's progress.  Well, Henry had arrived around the same time as us but had taken the Trans Am route. But it turned out that the phone store wouldn't fix Henry's screen, so the three of us continued while Matt and Mark went to the bike store.  

After a two-hour start ahead of our friends, we got an update from them, saying that they were still slowly getting there. We told them not to bother going shopping for groceries and that we'd make them dinner. About thirty minutes later, they texted us that they were on the road, so we had plenty of time. We dilly-dally but end up going the long way to Troutville.

So, we got to the hostel where we would stay, but it turned out to be sheds with bunk beds in them.  And it's a hot day, and with no good airflow system, we weren't convinced this was the best place to stay.  Sure, we had a breeze, but we were questioning whether paying thirty bucks per person was worth it.  The woman who owned the hostel sheds said that by sundown, you could sleep without covers, and people pulled the covers over them by four in the morning.  But we didn't want to be up late, so we went to a city park for free, where they had bathrooms and showers on a trail just for hikers and bikers.  My dad went to get groceries, and the woman there gave us each a goody bag of snacks and candy.  

Matt and Mark show up, making good time. We hadn't eaten dinner, and almost everyone had showered, but the grocery store closed at 7 pm.  So, at 7, my dad returned to the grocery store and got two half-gallon tubs of ice cream.  And since the ice cream would melt, we changed our meal schedule to dessert first before our dinner!  No one complained.

Again, we slept peacefully under the pavilion as our shelter.