...some good, some bad. We set off early-ish today, leaving at 9.30. I had bad feelings about it - despite some great waffles and good cereal in the motel, Alex's legs were knackered before reaching the 2 mile mark. We are aiming towards Knoxville, Tennessee, but keeping one eye on the weather channel - there has been widespread flooding in that area recently.
We had only managed 30 miles by 2pm, 4.5hrs later, due to an enormous climb up into Christiansburg. We went up more than 1000ft - uphill for 3kms, taking 20 mins. This has been the first proper hill, and for us marks the real start of the Appalachian mountain range that will stay with us for a while. Although this means that the scenery is amazing, it is without doubt one of the worst things as a bicyclist to be looking upwards no matter what direction you look - a common occurence today.
We stopped for lunch at 2, in a Macdonalds - the first of the trip. We went all out on their $1 Cheeseburger, and ate 5 each! This was over 3000 calories, and had the effect of slowing us down for the next 20 miles, although it nearly doubled our burger count.
As we waddled out of MacDonalds, we found an even more unusual sight than our reflections; we have been waiting to find another person cycling across America, and today we finally did! The only catch was, while we are doing it on two wheels, he is doing it on 1! But he is going a similar speed to us nonetheless, and we are now camped 10 yards from him in a park in Wytheville, VA.
By the end of the day, we had managed 72 miles, and are now happily lying in Patsy (our tent's first night out) - using some seriously random wifi, having eaten a massive pizza.
One other new thing - other than the tent and the burgers and the mountains and the unicyclist, was that I am now taking video's on my camera which may appear up here shortly - filmed while riding with no-hands - a feat I managed for a 3km long single stretch today.
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