Day 97 – 22 miles – 1,276 total

It was a very quiet night’s sleep. I am so used to hearing planes, trains, and automobiles and there were none out here in the country. I had my own room to sleep in so I didn’t hear Stick snoring either. I slept great.

We woke up early and Roger and Karen were making breakfast for us. Food is way better in these farming communities. We had eggs, biscuits and gravy, and bacon. Yum. We ate and then packed up and said goodbye to Ms Karen. Then Roger took us back to our starting point. We were so happy that we met them and I think that they were just as happy to have met us. It was a lovely experience to be involved in a greater plan designed to help us all out.

We were back on the road and I had to poop. We were in a tiny little town with a population under 200. They did have a little corner gas station store but no public restroom of course. I was about to do it in their parking lot when Stick encouraged me not to stoop that low. (badumbump)

There was a larger town 3 miles up ahead. I decided I’d wait until then and we got to steppin with urgency. We finally made it into Winton and they had a Family Dollar store. It was actually a really nice bathroom and worth the wait. I’ll spare the rest of the details.

While I was taking care of personal affairs, Stick was out talking to people in the parking lot. He met a woman who worked at a place called the Corner Cafe and they wanted us to stop in and meet everyone. We tried to find the place but our phones weren’t updating the map because we didn’t have internet service. We hated to have to keep going but we had to. I hope to go back some day and pop in the Corner Cafe.

We headed out of Winton and onto a newly constructed section on Hwy 13. It had nice wide shoulders and were great for walking on. We enjoyed a few miles of that and came up on a gas station called Dave’s Store. Our original plan was to turn off at the next intersection and hit the backroads there. We looked at the map and found a way that we could stay on this nice part of the highway for another few miles and then deal with some other backroads up ahead. The locals were telling us that this route would work for us and they seemed to have a good understanding of our needs. We decided to roll the dice and stayed on the highway. This saved us a few miles and would put us farther than we had planned for. Great!

It started to get really hot. We had to stop every hour or so to cool down in some shade. One little stop was in a tiny little town. It had a real oppressed feel to it. The buildings were all one strong gust of wind from collasping and you couldn’t hear a sound of activity. Just the occasional screen porch door swinging in the wind or dog bark. One house had a horse in their yard. I made the joke to Stick, “I think it’s safe to say that this is a one horse town.”

We were enjoying these little towns out here. They are some of the oldest towns since the European discovery of America. We pushed to a town called Gates. They had a store there and we had orignally planned on stopping here and camping for the night. It was still early in the day though. We had saved a lot of time by taking the other route so we decided to take a shade break to let the hot sun get lower and then keep going.

We talked to some of the cashiers at the store as they came outside for their smoke breaks. Every one that we talked to was affected by our cause. They were very happy that we were doing something about it. One of them paid for us to get some ice cream bars. That was a real treat.

We mustered up the courage and got back out on the road. We had 3.4 miles to go until the Virginia state line. There was a church right before it that we decided to camp at. We figured we would save the state line for the morning. It was a busy section of the highway and rush hour was a little hectic so it was a safety decision too. We knew that traffic would be way lighter at sunrise.

We headed over to the church and set up our tents and ate dinner. We tried knocking on the doors to ask permission but got no answer. The phone number listed on google was out of service. We just set up behind the church where we wouldn’t be bothering anyone and felt ok about it. We know that we always leave places exactly as we found them when we camp.

We heard a car pull up and someone get out to come talk to us. Crap. Busted. We were hoping that we would be able to talk ourselves into staying here since we were already set up.

The man comes into view, it was Roger and Karen. They had found us on their way back home and stopped to see if we wanted to go to dinner. It was great to see them but we had already eaten and our things were set up. We sat and talked for a good hour though. It was great to see them again. It was a real pleasure to meet them. I hope to remain friends for life.

They left and we turned in as the sun was setting. It was an early night after a long and hot day. Peaceful little night’s sleep in a tent behind a church in the middle of nowhere. Perfection.