Cycling Across America #14
Part 14 of the Cycle-Across-America series relayed day by day, exactly ten years after it happened. (Read from the start in Boston)
After four days of recovering, ten years ago today I restarted the trip on a brand new bicycle, as I tried to get back to the very place where I was knocked down, and I was taping myself again so it’s long:
Thursday the 15th of August. At a wild guess it’s half nine, ten o’clock. It’s the first day back on the bicycle since the hit-and-run, and it’s been a nightmare, from start, to finish. Where the finish is here, in a plastic portable toilet on a truck weigh station which is closed, on a four-lane expressway with bicycles forbidden.I got sent onto it by a couple of women, for the nearest hotel, as the sun started going down. It wasn’t the three miles that they said. I did ten miles. Ninety-four miles in total today. Virginia Beach, the intended destination was probably about a hundred and five I think. The last five or six miles were back upon myself.
So I got stuck again immediately; first day back. That’s down to my nerves being shattered, and to the roads in Virginia. I was on Virginia Route 10 today, most of today down and just a single road, a single carriageway. No shoulder and they don’t give you any room. I just kept having to go onto the grass. Trucks pretty much blew me off lots of times anyway. Not a single vehicle passed me that didn’t terrify me. My nerves are shattered.
I can’t do this. Not like this. I’ve got to find some roads. I found some small ones certainly, but that’s not the solution because they drive just the same. I don’t know. It seems so long since I had fun. It was back on the Eastern Shore getting chased by dogs on a little single roadway.
Getting out of here tomorrow is going to be a problem –assuming I don’t get caught by the police. There’s five or six police cars here. There’s a light on in the building, but there’s nobody in, I’ve knocked. I presume they’re going to turn up at some stage. This toilet doesn’t lock. My bike is outside. My worldly belongings on it. In here I’ve got just my helmet, my money, my glasses, my maps. And I took my sleeping bag in and I’m actually sitting in it, fully clothed including shoes.
The mosquitoes feasted on me outside, because there’s trees just beside us. All the way along, running alongside by the road. It took me about twenty minutes to find the repellent. The guys had gotten me big style by then.
I’d like to lie in a bed to be honest. If the police turn up I’ve got some explaining to do, but I can tell them I’m stuck and I got stranded, and tell them the truth. Tell them about my nerves, and about the crash. Show them the Accident Card from the Virginia Beach Police. It might make a difference. But if somebody else turns up in the middle of the night I could be in trouble.
I wouldn’t think the police will turn up before five, and maybe I can get out of here by then. I’m not sure what the hell I’ll do between now and then. I’m a bit scared of going to sleep but I am tired. And I’m wondering what to do tomorrow. I’ve still got to get off this horrible road. I reckon, looking at the map, it’s probably about five miles or so to 337 which will take me off this. What I’m on is a combination of 13, 58 and 460. It’s blue on the map. Blue is the same colour as the interstates. It’s a big boy.I don’t know where Frank’s Truck Stop is that those women told me was here, but I was going along in the hard shoulder, and it’s dusk, and I’m frightened, so I moved over onto the grass. Then I walked. But when I was walking the mosquitoes got me. So I cycled again in the hard shoulder. Then it disappeared. So I cycled in the grass but it was long and hard. So I kept on cycling in gravel and grass until I got to here.
For all I know Frank’s Truck Rest is two hundred yards up the road but I can’t see any signs of anywhere. I had about three inches of a roll left over from this morning’s breakfast.
Today was actually a beautiful day weatherwise but I didn’t really notice. I took a couple of photographs but most of the day was just my nerves. It was horrible. I didn’t enjoy it at all. No, that’s not fair, I enjoyed about a seven-mile stretch or a five-mile stretch up between Chester and Hopewell. Just a little windy road I found which was nice, and nothing else used it. It was in the woods and it was speckled with sun. Tarmacadam, which wasn’t heated up by the sun, so it wasn’t intoxicating the way it usually is.
Then I was on a dual carriageway with no hard shoulder. Then I was on a single carriageway with no shoulder, and busy with trucks all the way down. Certainly very historic. There’s loads and loads of plaques. I saw a lot of plaques which were usually referring to something four, seven, nine miles north, pretty much on the James River because I was going down on the south side, which is the boring side really. And I read them. I read them all. Mostly about plantations, or Bacon’s Rebellion, or the early days of Virginia. They were pretty good.
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. Thankfully this doesn’t stink. I’m actually sitting on the toilet. The seat’s down. I’m sitting on it. There’s a plastic urinal beside me. The door doesn’t lock and it’s a little bit open so I can see out, that I want to. There’s a light just outside, which throws some light in here, which is good, because there’s a white plastic roof and it comes through. I stink, because I’m covered in that repellent which lasts for six to eight hours. So that, hopefully, should be long enough.
Now where am I? It’s 58. Right, this blue road swings into the centre of Suffolk. I just passed the corporate limits about a mile ago, as I passed an airport. Surely I must be wrong. Those women said the place was not even five miles and I did about eight miles since I left them. There was nothing. There was nothing to see. Damn it. Don’t ask people in future. Or at least, no, don’t ask them. People forget about big roads. They just don’t understand bicycles.
Today I was stopping every fifty to one hundred yards looking at the traffic behind. When nothing was coming I would cycle the few yards. Then I would stop and pull off in from the road again. Or if I could see something coming in the opposite direction on the far side of the road I’d pull in from the road, because to be fair a lot of the trucks would give me a lot of room. If there was nothing coming the opposite direction they’d pull over right onto the far side of the road. And the cars would move out, maybe not as far but they’d move out. However if there was something coming the opposite way they wouldn’t move an inch. And they wouldn’t slow down. They’d just plough straight through. And a couple of dumpsters almost hit me.
I was terrified towards the end of the day when there was shadows, with the sun behind me, and the shadows in front. Seeing the shadow of the trucks come beside you. So many of the things on the road here are just very very wide anyway.
So I’m not worried about distance anymore. It’s the roads. It means I’m letting go of the line anyway. There’s no way I’m getting to Virginia Beach. It’s just, the roads that lead to it; the roads are lethal in here. You get knocked down. And I also see, I’d a closer look at the map here and there’s loads of tunnels. I can’t actually see a way into Virginia Beach, coming in from the West. But they’re lethal and I’m not dying to keep up a stupid thing like that. So the line will be broken, by a couple of counties.
Now I still don’t know how good this North Carolina map is. It looks like I’ll get nowhere near my Carolina, my North Carolina connection, the bicycle route, because that comes through a good bit further over to the west down past Raleigh. And for me to join it means I’d only just make it to it and then pulling away back east again to Fayetteville where my cousin from Dublin is. Now he should be three days away, which if you like would be one to Roanoke Rapids, another one to Raleigh, and then another short one down to him.
But Raleigh’s big and the way things are going I don’t want to anywhere near it. Even though I’ve wanted to go to Raleigh all the time. But I’m just thinking keep it small small towns if you can find motels. If nothing else tonight will save me money even though it’s rather a horrible night.
What am I looking at? Oh yeah, do I go for Roanoke Rapids? Because it’s as easy to aim for, well it’s not AS easy but it’s nearly as easy to aim for Rocky Mount. But I just worked that out, and from here it’’ probably about one hundred and four, one hundred and five, which should not be a problem really, if I get off to an early start. But if it’s anything like today and the roads are bad then I won’t get anywhere near it. The roads being bad mean dangerous. The roads could change. It could be dramatically different. The roads in Maryland were fine.
Maybe I could just aim for Raleigh but not go to it. I just, oh I don’t know, I’m just scared of traffic at the moment. Really, really scared. Don’t know if I’ll get my nerve back. I just need to be out in the country, and unchallenged by motor vehicles for quite some time.
This is horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. I’ll have to ring him as well. Now my parents will probably worry because I didn’t ring tonight. If I got to a motel I would’ve had a bloody phone. And it would’ve been so easy going ring-ring, ring-ring. Damn it. I wonder if, if the insects aren’t bad at the moment, maybe I should consider walking down. There’s about twenty foot width of grass before the trees, so you get quite away, away from the road. If I thought the, Frank’s Truck Rest, no, but what if it was full? No, stay put, you blew it. You blew it.
I’m tired. Should I sleep, with my bicycle outside? Who’s going to steal it –the police? I wonder if I could get fined. I could get into trouble.
I stopped at a diner and had a sub. Nice one, these nice little ladies, nice old ladies. I picked up two leaflets. One of them is on Smith’s Fort Plantation in Surry County, Virginia. Yeah Surry was very nice now that I think about it.
“In 1614 Indian Chief Powhatan presented a neck of land located on the south side of the James River in Surry County on Cray’s Creek to John Rolfe as a dower gift upon Rolfe’s marriage to Powhatan’s daughter Pocahantas. Their son Thomas Rolfe came to Virginia in 1685 to claim the land as his inheritance. The property received its name from Smith’s Fort built on a bluff above Cray’s Creek in 1609. Captain John Smith with the Jamestown settlers built the fort as a retreat in the event of an attack upon Jamestown. The fort was to serve as a second line of defence against the Indians and even more dreaded Spanish who were a constant threat from the South.
On this land stands an 18th century dwelling of architectural distinction. The storey and half brick house is laid in Flemish Bond. Its gabled roof is accented with dormer windows. Most of the original pine woodwork throughout the house survives. The blue room is of unusual beauty with chimneypiece, fluted pilasters corners, arched cupboards with butterfly shelves, and panelling which adds to its elegance. The present grounds include a small Boxford garden which was designed and planted by the Garden Club of Virginia.”
Okay. Oh there’s more. Stuff on Bacon’s Castle. That’s good because I went through the town called Bacon’s Castle after the castle itself as well. And onto some more history, about Bacon’s Castle. And I got something on Chipoaks Farm and Forestry Museum, Surry, Virginia as well. It’s a Plantation State Park.
Rang my mother this morning to tell her I was okay and on the road again with my wheels. The bike’s going great actually, not that I told her. She told me my friend’s mother wondered how I was doing. She had a dream about me on Sunday, which is the day I wanted to ring to thank her so much for the Miraculous Medals.
Read the Next Entry in My Bicycle Trip Across America
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