Day 3 - Mineral, VA to Charlottesville, VA - 67 mi

After a delicious pizza dinner last night and a relaxing night of sleep in my tent (next to train tracks where one rolled through at 4:30 am), we got off to another start around 7 am. I am sure that our start times will only get earlier as the summer and heat goes on/up. We were all really excited about a shorter ride today compared to yesterday and the fact that our ride lead us to the James Q. Miller clinic in Charlottesville, VA. We are paying the salary of a nurse practitioner to support their patients in the clinic - a large chunk of the money the cyclists have raised is donated there.



To steal a note from Rosanne Jones, we also spoke with a patient who has MS:

"My highlight of our tour of this clinic was hearing the personal testimony of a MS patient at this clinic - Angela Shaw. I hope I can do justice to her speech. She began by telling us how envious she was of our position: embracing our freedom, willing to tackle the challenge and more than anything, being physically-gifted to be able to pedal 4,000 miles. She told us that before 2002, when she was diagnosed with MS, she would have liked to embark on a trip like ours, except she would not have a cause to support. The MS cause would have never crossed her mind. But, all changed in 2002. Her life and her family’s life has been emotionally affected by this unpredictable and at times debilitating disease. I began to feel the “warm fuzzies” when she spoke about the MS clinic and how it has changed her life. This woman and her husband had been living in northern VA when she received the news, and not long after, they decided to move to Charlottesville for the sole purpose of being close to the James Q. Miller clinic. We learned that this clinic is the only MS specific clinic in the state of Virginia and West Virginian that has the ability to provide a wide-spectrum of care: physicians, physician’s assistants, nurses, physical therapists, social workers and other health care providers are all working together to provide the MS patients the best care at hand. She seemed to light up when talking about this clinic, and her warmth was contagious, because I felt her fire. I felt a renewed sense of motivation to continue cycling day after day after day, because I knew that if our funds only were able to impact one person’s life, like this sweet woman, that would be enough."

On a different note, some aspects of this trip resemble hiking the Appalachian Trail - we are meeting other cross-country cyclists much like you would meet other hikers. One of two guys we have met, named Pepper shown below who is a manager at Sundog Outfitters in Damascus, VA, is hanging with us and enjoying the same camping locations as BUS4MS. We also ran into a guy named Rich who is a flight attendant from Ohio taking a summer break to travel across the country. Both of them are traveling solo and carrying their own gear!


After arriving in Charlottesville, climbing some hills past Monticello, Joe Ferrell, Geordie Dye, Catherine Larochelle, and I grabbed a delicious beer in the downtown mall - first beer of the trip.


Our lodging for the night (includes a shower) is at the house of Ben and Caleb King who have an uncle that owns King Family Vineyards near Charlottesville. Salli and I have done some wine tasting there and enjoyed their Merlot!

Until next time...after climbing Afton Mountain in VA.