Charlottesville, Virginia

Earlier today, I became separated from Steve, and he called the fire department to see if I had checked in for a place to sleep. I hadn’t, but they said they would keep an eye out for me. Steve tried calling my cell phone unsuccessfully, so we were unable to rendezvous. In a seemingly unrelated interaction about an hour later, I witnessed an accident that blocked traffic onto the interstate. No one was hurt, but several rescue vehicles arrived at the scene, and I was still there helping the man in the demolished car. A fireman approached me before addressing the accident and asked if I was Mickey. Baffled, I listened as he told me my father was looking for me. We met up shortly after, and stayed the night on the lawn of–you guessed it–the fire department. Total mileage for the day, due to getting separated from each other and Steve being very sick: 17 miles.

Yesterday we stayed at the home of John and Pam, a sort of friend of a friend deal. They live outside of Charlottesville, in Free Union. They were more that happy to put us up, and Pam baked us cookies for the days to follow. It was nice to have clean laundry and a bed for a change, something I am looking forward to having every day.

Steve was awake all night, very sick. He thinks it was the water he drank in Vesuvius. We are uncertain how the rest of the trip will conclude. We are very near the end, but Steve is almost too weak to ride. He has been resting and drinking a lot of water. Hopefully we can ride unassisted into Yorktown in a few days.