Graveyard Politicians
Thursday was about as routine and uneventful as it gets. I decided to do a shorter day than the past few and ride what ended up being 46 miles to the town of Radford. There I’d wait and see how the weather turned out on Friday morning as wind and rain were in the forecast.
The ride wasn’t even close to Wednesday’s as far as scenery and peacefulness. It often went parallel to Interstate 81, which made for a loud day.
Around midway through the afternoon I was away from the interstate in a quiet, rural area. Many people have their homes decorated for fall and Halloween. Some go to much greater lengths than others. I passed by two homes next to each other that were all decked out. In between them was a graveyard scene with dummies of various people sitting on the grass with tombstones alongside them.
Two of the dummies were of Trump and Clinton, Trump saying he’s “gonna make this place alive again” and Clinton’s mentioned hiding emails, I assume by burying them. The Trump one was very good as far as looking like him, while the Clinton one looked rather creepy. It’s too bad Trump can’t get a fair chance in the upcoming “rigged” election.
As I was taking a few photos, a guy pulled up to the house next door. He said that the smaller home was his “getaway house” and that he had nothing to do with the decorations. His wife and son made them all.
The hills were still steep often, but overall it was sort of a break today with no overly long climbs. I arrived in the town of Draper where the Draper Mercantile was. Here they had rocking chairs out front on the deck and it was a nice place to take a break. Even though the temperatures aren’t too high, you still get hot after riding the hills.
One annoying thing the past few days has been the appearance of lots of gnats. It’s happened before, but not this often. I’ll ride and get hit a lot, looking down to see that they are all over my shirt and arms.
The rest of the day was fairly easy heading into Radford. I got a room and finally was at a place where I could get some laundry done in a machine. It’s been a long time and I was getting tired of washing out clothes in a sink.
I’m at just under 4,000 miles and should hit that mark on Friday, if the weather cooperates.