Dawn got us out of bed and to the ritual loading of our bikes—our trusty steeds. Last night we watched the Preakness from the Yorktown Pub amid a cheering throng of diners/drinkers. Good symmetry between Justify’s second win and our second ride. If Justify wins the triple crown, do we need to ride a third time? Don’t hold your breath.

After loading our bikes we rode to the traditional starting (or ending if you’re riding west to east) point—the Yorktown Victory Monument commemorating the American Revolutionary War victory of 1781. Although Congress approved the monument shortly after the war’s end, it failed to fund the monument for a century so it wasn’t completed until 1884! Some things never change. We then performed the ritual of dipping our rear tires in the Atlantic to be followed at the end of our trek with the baptism of the front tires in the Pacific.

So, full of hope and optimism we headed West out of Yorktown on the Colonial Parkway to the tune of the National Anthem (we kid you not), we presume from some nearby military facility and the perfume of honeysuckle. Leaves of poison ivy waved us forward. An hour or so later, we stopped for an excellent breakfast in Williamsburg at “Aromas”, based on a recommendation by a very friendly local out for his morning ride. With the exception of one pickup truck that purposefully blew black sooty smoke out of its exhaust—called “rollin’ coal”—, everyone we’ve met so far has been incredibly friendly!

The Parkway connects the Yorktown, Williamsburg, Jamestown triangle and once at the terminus we connected to the Virginia Capital Trail – pedestrians and cyclists only – for 35 miles. It was enjoyable not to have to focus on oncoming or following car traffic, although we were battling a 10-15 mph headwind the whole way. In fact, the headwind was the bane of our existence, today. That said, one of the roads we took later in the day had been closed due to flooding just yesterday following 4 days of torrential downpours. So, in that respect we were lucky that the road was open and the day was dry.

Sadly, not long after our “lunch” of a Cliff Bar and banana, we had to leave the Trail for some country roads, but not before we met a French couple whose bikes could not possibly have been more loaded down. They have been riding in the US, Cuba and Chile for the past 9 months and have logged over 9,000 miles. They were very happy to be able to converse “en francais” since they said their English wasn’t that good. We were happy to meet some cyclists more crazy than we are. “Formidable!”

Having left Yorktown with the Revolutionary War echoing in our ears, we entered the Civil War era as we climbed away up into the countryside. Our route took us past the site of the Seven Day’s Battles at Malvern Hill, battles that, according to the signs, had more influence on the course of the war than any others.

Riding past these battlefields, we fought our own battle against fatigue, wind, heat and route uncertainty. Four miles from our hotel we encountered a Road Closed sign placed apparently after the heavy rains the area has had. As we pondered an alternate route, another cyclist approached and said he had driven the “closed” road the day before but wasn’t sure about bikes. He took off toward the closure (downhill) then a few minutes later road back uphill to us to say he thought if we stayed in the center of the roadway through the flooded area we would be alright … and we were! Thank you kind stranger.

As the expected 4 miles came and went with no hotel in sight, we switched to Google maps and discovered we still had an almost unbearable 5.5 miles to go. Our optimism, hope and enthusiasm flown away, we had nothing to do but slog ahead and finally arrived at the hotel 10 hours after we left Yorktown! We collapsed into our room to begin rejuvenating mind and body, a decent meal at the “Mexico Restaurante” helped!

Tomorrow we head north and west and will stay with our first Warm Shower host of this trip.