August 21- Haysi to Rosedale, VA

We left the caboose B&B, after a big breakfast, in cool, foggy weather. The sun came out and we got a good warmup on mostly flat, winding roads for the first 15 miles. But we knew there was one big hill to climb. It turned out to be long, 2 1/2 miles, but not too steep, mostly about 8%, topping Big A Mountain at 2800'. What do you suppose the "A" stands for? Yep.

After Big A, we had two more shorter hills which were steeper and harder. On one we could see a tractor mowing the shoulder ahead and when he stopped to turn around we could see several dogs swarming the tractor. The tractor came back down the road toward us and he beeped his horn to warn us about the dogs. I stopped and shouted to the woman at the house trailer door to call in her dogs, which she finally did. I kept the pepper spray handy and we pedalled on. Many riders we've met have warned us about dogs in KY and VA. We have not had much trouble with dogs anywhere so far, though we have been recreationally chased by many.

A shower caught us at the little town of Rosedale, but we ducked into a convenience store for lunch and it stopped raining before we left. We laughed that we don't mind riding in the rain, but we do need to put on our rain jackets when we go inside air conditioned stores. Just outside of Rosedale we reached our stop, the United Methodist Church, which opens its doors to cyclists. We are becoming connoisseurs of church community room accommodations as well as minimart cuisine. The church here gets four stars for its full kitchen and well-stocked pantry (we brought our own dinner), but they have only a cold outdoor shower so they don't get that fifth star. Nevertheless, we appreciate their making the space available to us. Otherwise we'd be camping somewhere and probably dealing with a wet tent in the morning.

I realize I haven't commented much on the terrain in the last few days, since the hills commanded our attention. We have been winding through scenery of beautiful small wooded mountains. The mountainsides are so steep there is no farming. While there are few direct signs of coal mining to be seen from the road, there are many coal trucks on the road, and coal is the primary economic base for this region. The population is sparse, and there is hardly room in the valleys for the small towns that do exist, surrounded by practically vertical hillsides. The winding roads through the mountains are often very steep. It has occurred to me that when they improved the roads from the originally logging and coal hauling trails, they decided to invest only so much in dynamite.