June 27, 2014 - Mineral, Virginia

Post date: Jun 28, 2014 11:56:00 PM

I’m sitting in the shade at a picnic table that belongs to the Methodist Church in Mineral, Virginia, population 467.

The guys should be riding for another 45 minutes or so. I don’t think the cell reception is real great, so I will move over to the volunteer fire house in town soon, since that’s where we may be setting up camp tonight. Last night was the first night we camped since we tried to camp in Limon, CO. There was a severe wind event that night and we had to scramble to take our tent down as it was getting dark and find a motel nearby. In all the confusion, it turns out we lost a tent pole, which we didn’t discover until last night. Luckily, the campground had a tent someone didn’t want anymore, so we bought two of the poles for $5 (after calling REI to try to replace our pole and almost considering buying a new tent). My boy scout husband rigged the two poles together with duct tape to the right length, and it worked great!

We didn’t sleep too well in the tent. It was very hot and humid. So at midnight, my husband woke me up and wanted to move our tent as close as possible to the electric outlet on our campsite. We are traveling with a small electric fan that we were then able to use. We were more comfortable after that. Since I was up anyway and the bathrooms were not close, I had him walk over with me, so that worked out well.