The Final State
Monday unintentionally ended up being the shortest day of the trip, at just twenty miles. I had wanted to do a short ride after not having a day off in two weeks, but not quite this short.
The way these small towns are spread out there are not a lot of camping facilities or motels around, so you have to look ahead a few days on the map to see what’s available. That’s why places like the Baptist Center where I stayed the night before are so welcome. You may have to choose between riding 30 miles or 65 miles because of what’s available.
After getting on the road at 9:30, it was still cold out. There was a climb early on which helped in warming up. I heard lots of dogs barking along the way, but they were either far away from the road down a hill or across a river that ran beside it. I don’t think they will magically go away across the border in Virginia, but it was good to know that I only had a few more miles of Kentucky.
I stopped at the Velocity Market in Elkhorn City to pick up a few things followed by a diner just past it. Here the waitress told me there was a library just up the road. These are always good places to stop and use the internet, as it can become difficult to get a connection around here. When I pulled up to the library the door was locked with a sign saying that they were closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Luckily the internet didn’t require a password, so I was able to relax on a bench out front and catch up on the blog.
The ride outside of Elkhorn was very nice and after a long climb to a scenic overlook it led to some fun, winding downhill. This then led to another uphill and I was thinking that the border of Virginia had to be just around the corner. I rode just a little further and saw the sign up ahead. There wasn’t much room to pull over and enjoy the stop, but the area was big enough to get off the road and park the bike. I wasn’t at the coast, but at least now I could say that I had ridden from Oregon to Virginia, which in a way was hard to believe.
Not much further on I came to a store. I was about to pass it but decided to stop in to get a drink. I asked the woman about the town of Haysi which was about ten miles ahead. I told her that when I tried to call the place I wanted to stay at there, nobody was answering the phone. She said that it had gone out of business and that Haysi was such a small town that there was nowhere else to stay. There actually was according to my list, a farm where you could supposedly camp. But I had left a message and didn’t hear back from them.
The woman put me in touch with Debbie at the Breaks Interstate Park Campground, just a few miles up the road. Here they had campsites. My only other option was going another 25 miles to the town of Council and I wasn’t necessarily feeling like dealing with that, so I decided to call it a day at Breaks. A short day’s ride, but it felt good to be in Virginia.