We survived West Virginia. I now know why it is called the Mountain State. It is all uphill with limited downhills. I think the best climb we had was a 4.5 mile long 9% grade. The nice part was lunch was at the top. The bad part is that we thought it would be a nice long downhill after that. No. West Virginia likes to torture us with making a slight downhill followed by some serious uphills. West Virginia was gorgeous. The mountains were awesome and then there were times when it would just open up into farmland.
Yesterday, we got caught in two thunderstorms. The first one we biked through followed by several cars who told us to stop cycling or we would die. Yea, I definitely thought that between the severe rain, lightning, and logging trucks that I was going to die. At some point it was like we were biking towards lightning bolts and then the lightning bolts were actually in front of us and we had to stop and jump a barb wire fence into a Verizon factory for shelter. I was also chased by a dog today.
As a part of our affordable housing education we learned that West Virginia had the largest gap between minimum wage and minimum housing wage and it was definitly evident in the ride. We saw a lot of houses made just from tin sheets and it was hard to imagine them in the winter. As soon as we crossed the border into Ohio there was a noticeable difference in standard of living and it was just fascinating to see.
Tomorrow we ride 85 miles to Wellston, OH.
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FKNA, ever see that movie "wrong turn" i am glad you survived WVA. being a VA native, i try not to step foot in there, pretty much ever.
"and i got chased by a dog today" double LOLz
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