Day 3 - Mineral, VA

Surprise, surprise, when I got up and stepped out the door this morning. It had rained during night-time and so the air was perfectly cool. Plus, an overcasted sky which didn't let the sun burn down on me. It was early at the morning and I was riding away from the Richmond metropolitan area, therefore I was pretty much alone on the road. The landscape rapidly changed as I did the first miles. The coastal area between Richmond and Yorktown is subject to floodings throughout the year, that's why it's called the "Tidewaters". Felt like riding through a huge swamp, pretty much the cliché of some southern Mississippi farmland, with all those mansions set back from the road at the end of large fields.
However, it's different now. The hills are steeper, the soil seems to be dryer and the farms tend to raise horses. Somehow like in Southern Germany. The biggest change though is the people! They walk around in dirty clothes with holes, they jump on the back of a pick-up truck if there isn't enough space in the cabin and most important: I don't understand them! "t"s and endings are generally dropped, "bad weather" is more like " be weha"(German pronunciation).
In other words: It's a totally different world.
Not like that's new for me, California is rural for the most part, too. I just didn't expect it that early on the trip.
In the meantime clouds have vanished and the sky is all blue again.

Decided to split the 140km day, since I've left early it's just one more hour to the town of Mineral (about 450 ppl). I can camp behind the firehouse and use their kitchen, there's gonna be a canned "Hearty Meal" for dinner.

I'm writing from a gas station about 45 minutes away from Mineral. Don't know if they got any WiFi there and don't wanna arrive too early and hang around for hours...

Update: arrived at the fire station. They showed me the showers, restrooms and told me I could sleep inside in case of rain. Well it started to rain soon and although it has stopped, the sky is still dark. "Make yourself at home" - I'm not gonna turn that down! So today just my sleeping pad on the floor of their meeting room and I'm all set.

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Day 2 - Ashland, Virginia

Got up early today and was on the bike at 6:30.
It was unusually cool and I expected it to heat up within one hour. Didn't happen. It stayed relatively cool all day long. "Relatively" meaning compared to yesterday. The sun was covered by clouds every now and then and it wasn't as humid as the day before.
Speaking of which, it was brutal. Relative humidity up to 90%, even locals told me that's extreme. I had 40+ °C in the Central valley of California and the Sahara desert but that was doable because it was a dry type of heat.
What made it much easier today was a cool breeze, first time ever I was happy about headwinds!
Had the street for myself the first few hours which was quite nice, although drivers have been really fair so far.

What's a problem however is that there are hardly any campgrounds in this area and wild camping is virtually impossible since all the land along the road is someone's yard. Didn't expect Virginia to be that densely populated.
So I ended up in a hotel again for tonight. Doing that frequently is over my budget but other cyclists told me that there are gonna be lots of campgrounds once I'm over the Appalchians. In the Great Plains all the little towns let you camp in their city park, school yard or firehouse for free and out in the west wild camping is no problem at all.
That'll drop my daily spending average.

By the way: not only lodging is rare, also food and water. You better not run out of water at 30+°C when there's nothing for the next 20 miles. Got into that situation in California last year. That experience teached me what great luxury it is to have unlimited water available at every house, a good we usually don't recognize because it underlies no limitation in developed countries...

Besides that, not much to say about the route today. It's a green state, I've mentioned that before. Hundreds of nicely built churches everywhere! Towns with 30.000 people got at least 10, for every thinkable type of believe.

I've met the fourth Transam-buddy today. First one was yesterday, he was on his last day towards Yorktown. Today I met two guys dragging two fully packed trailers and a dog. They're doing really slow and allow themselves six months. Later I met another guy on his final days to Yorktown.

Need to get an early start tomorrow, if I'm not gonna do 140km I need to wild camp...

Day 1 - On the road again

Today I finally headed of. As it's tradition, I went to the beach and dipped my rear-wheel into the Atlantic Ocean. Same thing with the other wheel in San Francisco.
The first part of the ride was from Yorktown to Williamsburg on the "Colonial Parkway". The road is wide, the traffic slow and it was a joy riding it along the ocean and later through lush forrests. Saw my first turtle! Williamsburg is an unique town. Several hundred restored colonial-style buildings, no evidence of modern technology and even the residents walk around in 18th century dresses.
Wanna travel in time? Visit Williamsburg!
Next I passed historic Jamestown. The park has just few original excavations, all the buildings are fake, so I skipped it. At some point the bike path ended and I had to ride on a busy highway... Three things to mention: people here are great! They just randomly greet you on the street "welcome to virginia!". Of course there is the standard-talk "where are you from and where are you riding to? Are you kidding me?!? Safe trip!" all the time. I was surprised how many people have have been living in Germany (mostly for the military), met at least 10 on my first day. One guy needs to be mentioned: He was sitting in his car at a gas station, waiting for his wife to buy something. When he waved at me and I approached the open window he gave me a 20 dollar bill, "No good reason, go get yourself a pop (popsicle, dt. Wassereis)". How nice is that! Also worth to mention it, the story how I found a place to camp at. There are phone numbers of people who offer their backyard for bicyclists on the ACA maps. When I called one from a public phone the guy told me it's not possible anymore, but he gave me a new number of a guy called Neil. Called him and got told just to pitch my tent in his yard. When I arrived there I first wasn't sure if it was the right house so I knocked the door. It turned out that Neil was the owner of the property but didn't life there. The man living there knew about the bicycle-deal though, I had found a place for my first night of camping on this trip. That's how camping works on the transam! 

Yorktown, VA

Today Linda picked me up at 6am and drove me close to Yorktown, VA.
I was surprised how green this state is. Totally different to California, more like where I live back in Germany. Trees and farmland. Of course the architecture is different. Red-brick buildings all over the place, looks neat and you definitely feel the history involved in that area (early jamestown settlement from 1607). Most of the people down here consider themselves as southeners and indeed people are different. I'm gonna find out in what way during the next weeks.

Linda had to go back to work at some point and dropped me of some 25 miles west of Yorktown. With hardly any sleep and breakfast I had a hard time getting to Yorktown, but finally I made it.

Bad news: when I lifted the fully packed bike out of the van I hurt myself badly at the right leg. I pray to god (that's what people do down here - no offense) that the wound is gonna heal without complications. The humidity isn't supportive though...

Tomorrow, some 3 months after I decided to go for it, the great (ad)venture begins. Being back on my bike with the configuration carrying me 7 weeks last summer felt wonderful.
The road has got some more secrets for me to find out, let's get started!

"Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” Jack Kerouac, On the Road

4th of July

Came back the hotel half past midnight, what a trip... Need to do some fine-tuning on the bike and pack everything. Tomorrow (6am) Linda is going to drive me down near the starting point of my trip.
Therefore only pictures for now.

First day

What a crazy first day! Like a rollercoaster, from joy to fear and finally relief... But step by step:

1) baggage drop-off required a good portion of patience, since there was a metall-band with their instruments in front of me... However, I had an eventless flight on the new Boeing 747-8, great piece of engineering!

2) immigration and customs... My worst dream seemed to become true, just with an happy ending. The line at immigration was unusually short and I went through within 20 minutes. But: The officer didn't stamp my passport. "It's okay" he said, when I asked. For a few seconds I felt relief due the fast processing but moments later I couldn't believe and asked a random officer at the baggage claim, who then dropped the worst words one could imagine: "secondary inspection".
In other words: they don't trust you. Third summer in a row, this time even three months?! Maybe they send you back home, maybe they don't allow you a 90-days stay. Trip is ruined anyway.
I couldn't realize all that, somewhere between nervous breakdown and unconsciousness. Had to give away my passport and "take a seat". Sitting there for way too much time I had already accepted that this trip was gonna come to an early end. Eventually they called for "Erb" and I had to tell my story again. Finished school, university in oktober etc. etc. They even wanted a second ID with photograph, luckily I had my national ID with me.
Again I was told to sit down and wait. Some more minutes, pulse skyrocketing.
Long story short: After another talk I got the damned stamp and even the full 90 days.
By the way: I bet they went through all data they got about me, including facebook, mail-account and this blog (which is linked to the mail-account). Welcome to 21st century...
Got out the airport and into a wall of humidity. Quite different to California, the climate over here.

But now to the nice things!
3) Called Linda from the airport and she came pick me up with her massive car. Easy loading and off we went.
After I had assembled my bike at Linda's place there was a delicious dinner with her family - what more does it take to make a traveller happy?
A bed, of course! Found a pretty cheap one at Holiday In Dulles, likely to be the most "luxurious" accommodation on this trip.

Tomorrow America celebrates its independence from the British crown, declared July 4th 1776, followed by 8 years of war and since then celebrated with parades, fireworks and much more.
I'm gonna watch the huge fireworks at National Mall. Yes, that's where Martin Luther King Jr. held his famous speech, or was it Forrest Gump?

Just a test

Just want to check if upload via tablet works.
Free wi-fi at the gate!