we list!

Number of toe-clip-related falls:
Nick: 5
Dave: 1
Number of cafe owners who, upon discovering that Dave and I were on a cross-country journey, supplied us with free stuff: 2 (Tuan at Cville; Brian at Lexington Coffee House; both lovely people; both supporters of Good Thing in General)
Dave's problem area: Achilles' Heel (swollen, sore)
Nick's problem area: Left eyelid (swollen, annoying)
Intensity, on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being extremely severe), of our sunburns:
Dave: 5
Nick: 2
Average mileage per day: 60
Most miles in one day so far: 87
Least: 30 (today)
Number of families who have allowed us to camp out on their front lawns: 2 (Barry in Charlottesville, the cyclist, the giver of water; and the too-gracious Lee family in Catawba, who, in their infinite kindness, supplied us with showers and warm meals and long lounging talks, even though we had asked merely for a plot of grass)
Chafing: No(t yet)
Allergies: Yes (Nick only)
Blue Ridge Mountains: Conquered!
Appalachia: Forthcoming!

We are in Blacksburg (the sun is shining; the days have brimmed unflaggingly with too-beautiful-to-fully-process pastoral scenery--there: dilapidated barns! there: impossibly green hills of grass! there: long white fences; brown mares, coats ashimmer!) and we have been taken in by a coterie of bike co-op twentysomethings and are on our way to the river to lounge with them and drink deeply (collegiately) of wine and our legs are growing stronger and our butts are becoming less consistently sore and at night I think of what I would be doing if I had not decided to do this--where I would be sitting, what beers I would be drinking at which bars with what unclose acquaintances--and I beam, and I swat the bugs away, and I rub my swollen eyes, and I think lingeringly of my loved ones, and I sleep.