Damascus to Grahams Forge 75 Miles

7/26/11
It was a great day.  Temps were in the mid 70s in the morning warming up to the high 80s in the PM.
We loaded the bikes in Abindgon and drove to Damascus, 11 miles.

Damascus is one community along the Virgina Creeper Trail. (The Appalachian Trail also goes through here.) Jan and I rode the Creeper Trail a few years ago.  It starts at White Top at about 3,000 feet and goes 36 mile, ending at Abingdon.  There are many bike tour companies in Damascus and Abingdon.  They will rent you a mountain bike and drive you up to White Top and turn you loose to ride downhill about 20 miles to Damascus or longer to Abingdon.  Jan and I had rode our own bikes. When we arrived in Damascus we hired one of these companies to drive us back to White Top.  We noticed that the road back to White Top was quite steep and we were happy we had a ride up back to our car.  Guess what, that was the hill Dave and Pete rode along our route.  It went up about 4 miles, but Dave and Pete said it was not the toughest one on the trip since it was not that steep.

This is beautiful rolling hill country.  We are seeing very few junky yards as we did in the eastern part of the state.  There are many beautiful horse farms.  Dave and Pete report a bonus animal sighting.  A medium size black bear ambled in front of them.  It happened so fast that Dave could not get a picture.

The one they actually saw was a bit smaller than this one.

Pete was nearly run over by a gopher but the rodent thought better of it and made a super fast 180. Pete swerved to avoid it and Dave had to swerved to avoid Pete.  That little sucker nearly caused a pile-up.

We noticed a camp ground as we approached Grahams Forge.  The $15.00 price was right.  The grassy, level sites, and the hot showers were a draw.  The weather was absolutely perfect for camping. We cooked a dinner of pork chops, sweet potatoes, sweet corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, and mellon pieces. Life is good.
The temps cooled off to make it a good sleeping night.

Phil