Week 2

Week Two,

This week was just as good as the last with plenty of new people and some interesting trails.  So far on the trip we've always been asking people if they knew where we could get a bed to sleep in and roof to go over so we asked this man at the YMCA if he knew any place we could stay, and he offered to let us stay in his the YMCA.  You may not think of this as that exciting, but he let us play basketball and volleyball, plus a place to sleep, internet, access and most importantly after going a week with out them, showers.  That had to been one of my favorite parts of this week.  But of course after we left I got 2 flats and it was way before my usual rise and shine time.  Oddly enough it took for people for us to fix a flat.  I assume we'll get better at it as we head further west....  Another cool person we met this week was a man named Vito at the Big Meadows campground.  He was thrilled by what we were doing and said we should keep journals to record our experience.  It got kind of annoying hearing it back home from my family but it was cool hearing it from a stranger.  I know Jacob wants me to put this in here we go.  We were at a lunch stop at a place called Red Hot & Blue Bar-B-Que and we got this BIG plate of ribs.  You can order them in three ways, wet, dry, or sweet.  They were some of the best I've ever had.  We also got this pitchers by the 32oz. full of water or soda.  I must say we've gotten to taste some great foods so far and I hope to taste some more....  After that we had to stock up on food for 3 days so we could climb up Skyline Drive in Shenadoah National Park.  The climb was by far the hardest part of the week so far.  We climbed 5000 feet the first day and 4500 the next for a total of a 9500 foot climb.  There were lost of steep ups and downs but we were strong and toughed it out.  It felt great when we got to the top because we could look down at the climb and say "I finished that in 2 days!"  The weather going up that though could change in a snap.  I remember, one second it looked like a foggy morning in Santa Barbara and then BOOM thunder went of and we could see lightning several miles away.  The rain was coming down so hard that you could only see the color of the BOB bag the person was carrying in front of you.  I wanted to take pictures but it would've ruined the cameras for good.  The last thing I have to tell you was our stop at Monticello the old home of Thomas Jefferson.  We were looking around and we saw the west lawn and John whispered to us how cool it would be if we could ride our bikes across it.  I guess the guy at the lawn heard us and lowered the little thing they use for the red carpet to keep the crowd back.  We looked at the guy like Are you serious? And he was really cool about it so now to add on my list off things i've done I can write "I rode across Thomas Jefferson's Lawn".  Then we were met by the President of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Daniel Jordan.  He was fascinated that we were traveling across the country as Lewis&Clark did so he gave us this peace medals.  We're supposed to hand them out to those who we think have been extra helpful or hospitable on the way.  I think I'm gonna send some to some of the people we've already met along the way.  That's it for this week.  Goodbye.