Monday

After eating the most wonderful breakfast at Grandma's House, we headed down the road, back to the trail. After riding 1/2 mile we came to The Paw Paw Tunnel, which unfortunately did not have any lights. This was a big deal for me - the dark, damp tunnel certainly meant bugs, worse - spiders and if not them, then it meant bats. With no lights for about a mile, it would be highly possible, no better, it was bound to happen that some sort of creepy crawler would fall right at the exact moment I was passing under it. I was unable to find an umbrella hat in time for this trip(to protect me from any bug bodies that might drop from the ceiling unexpectedly), although luckily I did bring a regular umbrella. Oh yes, I quickly remembered the umbrella that would have been perfect for this exact moment in time had been forgotten in dad's car. Great! So I held my breath and made dad go first. I eventually followed him and man, was it dark! The canal was to our left was about 10 feet wide, while we were left with a dinky four foot path to ride on. There was only a little wood fence separating us and the deep, dark canal. I cannot stress how dark it was in there! - and then at different points you would feel the trickle of water on you from above. I screamed at one point from feeling something slimy fall on me, which echoed through the whole tunnel and of course, made dad scream. We pedaled like madmen to get the hoo hoo out of there. Word to the wise - don't forget your umbrella hat.


-------> me faking a smile after going thru the canal


The rest of the day was pretty low key - more beautiful scenery and just peaceful to be surrounded by nature. I'm not sure the temperature, but I would guess it was around 80-ish degrees. Since we are both pretty badly sunburned, we decided to eat a later lunch and sit indoors until about 4, when it cools down. We ate a place called Bill's Place, which is a biker's bar located pretty much in the middle of nowhere. That and a house across from it basically made up the whole town, so we really were in the boonies - somewhere in West Virginia. Fortunately for us, there were no bikers (since dad was in spandex) and we had the whole place to ourselves, except for two other people. The ceiling was just covered in 1 dollar bills that had each been signed by its donor and then stapled where you could see it. There were literally thousands of them everywhere you looked.



Probably would have been helpful to us when we went to pay our bill and found out this place only accepts cash. We only had credit cards. The closest ATM was 15 miles away! So, I sent dad back to wash dishes while I chatted with the owner. Just kidding! You know dad - he always makes friends with people and luckily had befriended the guy even before we placed our food order. So, dad struck a deal and the guy allowed us to send him a check once we reached home. Good ole' dad - saved the day again! We made it to our hotel -Super 8 for $49.99/nite - can't beat that price! We celebrated our week of cycling over some pizza at Pizza Hut.