Saturday, June 25th:

Today we woke up with another glove mishap- and today the victim was Matthew. Sometime between the time that we got to the hotel and when we left, his glove was misplaced. We checked the room, the laundry room, and even the hallways- but it was nowhere to be found. Gratefully, Ed had an extra pair that he could use- and with that, we set off. About 2.5 miles down the road, we came to the Cumberland Gap. They had recently built a tunnel system to navigate THROUGH the tunnel- rather than over it. However, when we got to the tunnel, we say the sign that said that bikers were prohibited. After 15 minutes of discussion and debate, we had to put our bikes into the Cumberland Gap Patrol’s vehicle and ride through the tunnel to the other side. During our ride through the tunnel, we passed the Tennessee state line- and on the other side, we got a picture next to the sign. Just another mile or two we crossed north into Virginia, our final state on this trip. This ultimately brings our state count to 11 states. That’s over a fifth of the whole US, and almost a fourth of the continental US! And in a couple days we’re going to be stopping right near the North Carolina border, and when they send me out shopping for them, I’m going to make sure to do it on the NC side. ;-) But that aside, we followed Highway 58, also known as Daniel Boone Trail, along southeastern Virginia all the way to our 20 mile break. After our break, we had to climb up another few big hills to our 40 mile break. Just a few mile after our 4 mile trip, Ed’s chain came off and got stuck in his guard rail. After a few minutes of playing with it, we got it back and working- just in time for us to go up the steepest hill of the day, Powell Mountain, at an elevation of 2319 feet. After dropping off the other side of the mountain and a few more hours of climbing we got to our 60 mile break at about 1:00. Because of all the climbing we were going super slow- but going slow is still shortening the distance to Virginia Beach. At 75 miles we stopped in Weber City, Virginia for some Wendy’s- and then crossed back into Tennessee towards Bloomingdale and eventually Bristol. After booking it through Bristol, we ended out our hotel between Bristol and Abingdon in Virginia.