The Thin Blue Ride - Part 2 day 88 - Misty Mountain Campground (Rest Day)

Wednesday, September 4th, 2019

Ride Report: None - Rest Day

By this time the reader knows that we do laundry, wash bikes and other miscellaneous chores on our day of sloth.  As a result, I shan’t bother repeating that blather.  Instead, I thought I’d provide a snapshot of the remaining 4 riding days, give you all a quick look around the campground, and briefly discuss our post ride plans.  Said plans being, at this point, still in the formative stage.  But first, a confession.

Last night I got the first of what I suspect will be repeated occurrences of the butterflies concerning the end of The Thin Blue Ride.  Nothing earth shaking, mind you, but they made a brief appearance none-the-less.  In the run-up to the ride, the trip to get to Oregon and subsequent riding; life has pretty much been consumed by the ride.  No time for butterflies.  And tho there may be among you those who will scoff and suspect I am self aggrandizing, I’ve concluded that it takes considerable mental discipline to ride one’s bicycle across the good old USA.  But, what happens when the very action necessitating that discipline abruptly ends?  This was the nature of my angst last night.  The ride has been a struggle at times and a thing of beauty at others.  But in my assessment it has, mostly, been worth the effort.  “One thing that cycling has taught me is that if you can achieve something without a struggle it’s not going to be satisfying.” (Greg LeMond).  Is it possible to miss the struggle?  Upon reflecting on The Thin Blue ride, will I be satisfied?  That is what the butterflies were settling amongst themselves last night.  I suspect they’ll let me know when the time is right.  And when they speak, I’ll pass it along.

Holy cow - heady stuff there readers.  My apologies.  So, try and keep your confusion in check, it’s still me here.  I just wonder if I’ll miss it.  I think the answer is probably yes and no.  But I can say that I’m looking forward to the post ride trip home.  For reasons that will be made evident below.

Speaking of which - here’s what remains of the ride...

This is a screenshot of a Google Maps route to Yorktown.  The route starts at the top left and works to the bottom right.  The blue dot at the top left is our current location at the campground.  Susan will drive me back to White Hall where I stopped yesterday so that I can continue from there tomorrow.  While the stops listed at A (Tabscott), B (Ashland), C (Charles City) and D (Yorktown) are accurate, the route - not so much.  But it does get the point across. 

And now on with today...

The Rig at the campground.  Just when ya think you've finally arrived in life, ya look across the street...

...and realize that no matter how many apples are in your pie, there's always somebody with a bigger pie.

It's hot and humid (again) here today, so it was a good day for a Rest Day.  But it was still cool by the creek that runs thru the campground.  It's just a small creek, but it's clear and I like the ripples in the foreground between the leaves.

Nobody out there in the sun right now, but this is a campground with some pretty nice amenities.  In this shot there is a tented meeting space to the left, a kid's playground in the center, a clubhouse and office, and an elevated stage to the right.  What doesn't show up is the pool and the splash park behind the clubhouse/office.  That's right readers, all this for only $55 per night.  It's enough to make me want to open an RV Park.  If I do you're all invited - for $55 a night.

This is the park's tenting area on the other side of the creek.  Each of these sites has electricity and an elevated platform to get either your tent or your picnic table up off the ground.  Maybe both - if ya have a small tent.

Me - standing on the bridge over the creek.  C'mon.  By now the reader should know that I'm a sucker for the bridge/water combination.  They make me...serene...

This, readers, is how ya can tell the high class RV Parks from the pretenders.  That's right - ducks.  It works like this: ducks are better than no ducks,  more ducks is better than a few ducks, white ducks are better than non-white ducks - unless the non-white ducks retain their wild counterpart's colors.  Then, multi-colored ducks are better than white ducks.  Net result - this place is moderately upper crust.  Now excuse me while I go hob-nob with the neighbors in the tiny house.

Right now the post ride plans have us hitting Yorktown for several days to see the sights and have some time to unwind from the trip.  It will be unusual to spend more than a day and a half in one location.  Then on to Newport, Rhode Island for a bit.  And with Cape Cod just around the corner (both figuratively and literally) we'll spend some time there.  Then it's off to Lake Champlain in Vermont for several days.  Finally, a stop over in St. Louis on the way back to visit Tim and Glynda Gasser - friends from BK (Before Kids).  As it stands now, we will have maybe three additional days to burn in there somewhere and we've yet to figure out what to do with them, but I'm sure something will come up.

Till next time.