If you don't like the weather, ride 10 miles

We left Princeton heading south to Sparta in North Carolina. We managed to get lost almost immediately again today (again no fault of our GPS). However, in backtracking to get on the right road we discovered a gem of a road, that wound up the side of a mountain and back down the other side. Damn! we wish we'd written down the number of that road!

Once back on track we spent a few miles on Interstate 77.

We were very pleased to turn off onto minor roads. It started raining lightly near Rocky Gap soon after we left the Interstate. We were in no hurry to get into our wet weather gear in the heat, so we just resigned our selves to being a bit damp. It kept us cool. We pulled into a service station when the rain started to get heavy, and had a coffee there while we waited for it to pass.

We were able to continue on wet roads but without rain for a few more miles before the rain returned, heavier this time.

We took the first opportunity we found to stop and shelter - under the Interstate. The sound of trucks passing overhead sounded uncannily like thunder.

Common fencing around homes we have seen in the last few days. It encloses horses and cows.

At Bastian we stopped at a diner for lunch. The crowd there were all decked out in their Sunday best and had obviously been to church a little earlier. Some places do not serve food on a Sunday.

One of the things we couldn't help but notice as we have travlled through West Virginia, Virginia and into North Carolina is that none of the locals ever stops to talk with us. The only people who have shown any interest in chatting are other travellers. The people aren't rude - they just don't see us. It's as if we were invisible...

From Bastian we continued south through farmland of no great beauty, A few miles past the town of Sparta we reached the Blue Ridge Parkway and turned onto it.

As we rode along the Parkway, the road climbed higher and was soon in the clouds. Heavy fog coming in from the east completely blocked the view on that side; on the other side of the ridge, we could occasionally see below the/clouds.

Our aim was to head into Boone for the night. Our GPS took us off the Parkway rather earlier than necessary on a road that was not particularly scenic (it was shorter by a calculable margin, we guess).

Again it started raining heavily. We stopped again in the shelter of a petrol station and filled up the bike. Several other bikers had the same idea. We couldn't remain in the driveway, so we rode 200 yards back up the road to a restaurant where we had coffee and waited for the rain to blow over.

As soon as it seemed clear, we rode the last 10 miles into Boone, our destination for the night. We caught more rain...

In boone we found the cheapest motel so far on our trip - $35 a night plus tax. It sounded too good to be true, and it was - they didn't have the internet - so we phoned the nearest other motel, the Sleep Inn, and was told it was $67 plus tax. When we arrived it looked very new and up market and had everything: swimming pool, internet, fridge, microwave, coffee maker, hair dryer, iron and ironing board, little bottles of complementary shampoo and conditioner and (drum roll, please!) - full breakfast in the morning. Great value!

We walked down a busy road to the supermarket and bought dinner to eat in our room. The area is deceptively steep but the distance was short.