A whole slew of posts! (Taylorsville, NC)

Amber waves of grain (well, sort of cream-colored--man those bikes are heavy!)










Lunch in Statesville













Celebrity T-shirt signing













Welcome from the younger Barrys










Welcome from Calvary Baptist

We have a little down time in Taylorsville, NC and I’m getting caught up on my journals, so please scroll down to see a bunch more! We rolled up to Taylorsville’s First Baptist Church around 2:00 this afternoon and caught our first glimpse of purple-headed mountains. Well, foothills, really, but we were pretty excited nonetheless. Today’s ride (65 miles) went really smoothly, which was a big relief after yesterday’s excitement. Marilyn, the Bike and Builder from one of last year’s routes, brought us muffins, coffee and cereal at Calvary Baptist, which was awesome. The weather had cleared up and warmed up, and was nice when we hit the road at 8, the local news crew filming us as we biked away. About ten minutes down the road, a car pulled up at an intersection next to us and the driver shouted: “I just saw y’all on the news!” We also got some friendly horn toots from other drivers, which made me feel pretty cool.

We stopped in Statesville for lunch around 45 miles, and it’s actually a cute little town. We parked the trailer across from a gas station, and several people walked across the street or stopped us to ask what we were doing. One guy said that he saw us on the news last night and insisted that we all sign his T-shirt (apparently George Clooney was in Statesville this winter looking for filming locations, and we’re the best “celebrity appearance” since).

When we arrived at First Baptist Church, Jen’s family greeted us with a friendly welcome sign. The church set up snacks and a poster board displaying posts from our blogs…making us celebrities indeed. We’ve just had a dinner of the best lasagna in recent memory and fudge brownies (I can’t even imagine what my caloric intake is on this trip), and we’re about to give our standard presentation about the trip to our gracious hosts.

Things I’ve learned today:

* Hills are never quite as bad going up as they look from a distance, and they tend to be easier when taken by force rather than slowly and gently

* Western North Carolina is much more pretty and pastoral than I give it credit for (rolling hills, old barns, bales of hay, the red wheelbarrow and the white chickens)

* It also has asiatic lilies growing by the road from time to time, which earns it bonus points

Bike odometer: 469.9 miles