It was decided yesterday that we would forgo the trip to the eastern coastal town of Yorktown, VA, the official start point of the TransAmerica route going westward, in favor of just heading west toward Charlottesville. Somewhat disappointing, but sometimes compromises must be made to move forward.

We stopped in a small town called Bumpass and stocked up in their tiny local store, and the owners invited us to sign their bike tourist guest book. We’re just a few days behind another rider heading to Oregon.

We ended up having an early dinner at one of the two restaurants in Mineral, VA and thought about camping near Lake Anna until we heard the local fire department allows tourists to stay free in their field and even use their showers. The price was right and the firefighters and EMS folks were very nice. There was even a fenced in field and Miss Petunia did LOTS of running.

And some resting and napping, too.

I guess we were just too distracted to notice the train tracks running 20 yards from the field we camped out in, but when it felt like a train bolting through our living room as we were all sound asleep by 9pm, we certainly realized that this town wasn’t so quiet after all.

It must’ve had about 50 cars on it, too.

We bid adieu to Mineral this morning and headed on west. We stopped in one small town called Palmyra in search of lunch, but the local gas station only had the usual candy and junk food. A few simple turkey on white bread sandwiches that we bought from their fridge turned out to be a month past the expiration date, but luckily we noticed this before we ate them. Blech.

The town did have a cool old jail though, so we horsed around in the stocks before heading of to Charlottesville, where we are spending the night. More on that story later.