I filled up with gas at Trent’s grocery in the morning at the bottom of the mountain from our campground before heading out on the TAT and met some locals. “Where ya from?” “ Where ya going?” are frequent questions we get almost ever time we stop. When you are on a bike, you are look vulnerable and accessible and are available for conversation…. which is good. The locals continued on and offered to me that “5 Germans just came through last week” on their way going west on the TAT…. “they shipped their bikes from Germany and everything” they said. Most folks ride the TAT west…. the Rockies are a big lure to east coast riders….why would anyone who rides out west want to ride East?
We rode 110 mi today. We are now riding the forest service roads of Thomas Jefferson National Forest and valley roads to hookup with more forest road, repeat.
We stopped in Marion VA so Bill could mail 30 lb of gear home to lighten his overpacked load. Light weight is your friend on the TAT.
We deviated about 20 mi’s to meet and stay with a good friend of Joe D’s named Charles (Sturgills, NC) Charles and his wife Julie have a beautiful house way up on a hill or mountain with a big veranda where we had dinner later that evening. Charles is a retired Army Colonel from the medical research branch of to Army. In retirement Charles worked with Mel Gibson on the Mel Gibson directed movie hacksaw ridge in 2015 …he represented the foundation of Desmond Doss the consciousness objector medic hero of that battle that the movie was about. He had all the scripts. He moved to NC at the end of his career and built a beautiful solid log house. We had showers and a steak in gravy dinner with water Mellon desert. We slept very comfortably in his air conditioned basement on the floor.
