Over 400 miles! Over half-way!!!

Day 10 - 49 miles (Fredericksburg, VA to the Twin Oaks Community in Louisa, VA)
Day 11 - 33.5 miles (Louisa, VA to Cumberland, VA)
Day 12 - 34 miles (Cumberland, VA to Farmville, VA)

We've had another few days of wonderful hospitality.  Thanks to Bob & Vicki in Fredericksburg, and to Pearl and the others at the Twin Oaks Community.  Twin Oaks was a rejuvenating place for us to visit.  We arrived sore and dragging and left without soreness and full of energy.  It's amazing what some good solid positive company will do for the body and soul.

While leaving Twin Oaks, we stopped in to check out our bikes in the bike shop there.  We had some routine maintenance tweaks to make.  Thankfully, we were there when we discovered my broken spoke and patched our first tube.  Pearl taught us a lot about maintenance.  I also adjusted my shifter, re-applied my left-hand bar tape and tightened up my brake lines.

The terrain around here is great.  It's much like riding on a rail trail.  Straight (mostly) and flat (mostly).  The past 50+ miles have been a joy.  Last night a woman stopped us and offered a spot on her farm for the night.  She was concerned about the storms coming through.  We decided to sleep in her barn.  It had a tin roof.  For about an hour between 11:30 PM and 12:30 AM, the rain came down so hard and loud that neither Mike or I could sleep.  I could only sing and pray to calm myself.  The tin made it sound SO intense.  There was no wind, thankfully, or we would've been legitimately fearing a tornado.

We spent a night in an Appalachian Trail shelter 4 years ago which had a skylight and tin roof just like this barn.  The storm that night was more intense and more terrifying than the one last night.  I was able to recall that this wasn't really that bad, and there weren't any trees around us.