Saturday, June 10, 2023
Lexington, VA → Roanoke, VA
98.04 km && +914 m elevation [60.92 mi && +3000 ft elevation]🇧🇷 Song for today: Trem das Onze — Adoniran Barbosa 🇧🇷
Lots of different terrains
Hi, Blog! It's Vin tuning in. Our day starting out exploring a variety of terrain after getting very useful advice from our previous hosts Dirk and Chrissy to take a hidden route along the river. This route started with a climb up the grassy hill in their backyard which gave us a Beau-ti-ful view of the sun rising. We biked down the gravel and we we were covered by trees on a dirt path along the river. This gave us a car-free and very pleasant ride to bike routes 11 and 76.
Lots of farm land (hey, cattle)
After a short stint on the highway we entered a path that took us through farm lands. We saw HUGE rolls of hay (sometimes American flag covered), many cows (and their new born calves), and even a barn cat watching us from a hay bale in the attic barn. This gave a new meaning to "barn cat," as someone who has only ever had indoor cats. P.S. Did you know cows can be taught to play fetch?
Boco Buchanan
Some of our members needed to take a bathroom break and so we happened upon Boco Buchanan (Note: this is pronounced buck-an-an not bu-canon). We decided to take a "short" stop and got free ice cream, Andrew went up a climbing wall, and we saw many animals. The festival was to encourage kids to spend more time outdoors, exploring their backyard, and so there were many wildlife and conservation officials we talked to!
Our wonderful host Steve + his family
About two hours and a lunch break later we rolled into Roanoke, which was a larger city that I imagined. It has a bustling downtown, huge hospitals, and some of the nicest hosts and people. We had the absolute pleasure of meeting Steve, an MIT alum, and his wife Barbara + son Frank. Soon after we arrived we got to eat some DELICIOUS lasagna and met Barbara's sisters Lisa and Kate + Kate's husband Bert. The next couple of hours flew by in conversation and I have never laughed as hard as I did at Steve and Barbara's dinner table. Steve showed us his notes from MIT and even a "certified ancient" iMac.
Roanoke Star (can you spot the errors) + Ice Cream
After dinner and conversation, Steve took us to to see the Roanoke Star and the view from Blue Hill Mountain. The star was ginormous! However, Steve pointed out that there are two errors on the plaque: 1 grammatical and 1 technical. Can you figure it out? Comment them below! After our expedition to the top of the mountain (thankfully we did not bike), Steve took us to Blue Cow Ice cream (thanks for the treat, Kate!). This ice cream was amazing and they make their own cones! Safe to say many of us are now considering Roanoke as our retirement destination!
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