1. Bob Barker (left) and Ray at Snow Camp, NC.
1. Bob Barker (left) and Ray at Snow Camp, NC.
2. Studying maps of Chapel Hill trying to find Connie.
3. More deliberation about where Connie is.
Last Modified on 9/24/97 at 5:45:37
Day's Narrative: We decided to go that way. It was a wise decision. There was hardly any traffic, except for some dump trucks hauling dirt and construction debris. The hills were gently rolling. About halfway at the small town of Snow Camp, we met a local resident Bob Barker (photo 1) and had an interesting discussion of the weather, local history, baseball in the armed forces in World War II, and several other topics I can't remember. He's an interesting person. Jonathan broke a spoke in his rear wheel during the last few miles and limped into Chapel Hill with a wobbling wheel. He got a new spoke at a bike shop and repaired it in the evening. Bob van Arsdall's house is just off Bicycle Route 2, also known as the Old Greensboro Road, so we saved several miles by taking that route. We arrived at Bob's about 12:30 pm. As it turned out, we could have made the trip from Winston Salem to Chapel Hill in one day if we had known more about the area. At Bob's house we phoned Connie and tell her we were already there, and discovered she was lost and also had a migraine headache. The headache made it difficult for her to drive. So we dug out some of of Bob's maps of the Chapel Hill area and tried to find her (photos 2 & 3). Eventually, I bicycled to where she had identified a cross street on US 15-501, and brought her to Bob's. So we are here for tonight and tomorrow night, and will leave for Clinton, NC and the last two days of the trip on Thursday morning. If we stay in Clinton, NC as originally planned, each of those days will be about 80 miles (130 km) so the riding will be less relaxed than it has been the last couple of days. We have discovered that we must get off early in the morning to avoid possible riding at night, should we have trouble. The more bicyclers there are, the higher the probability of something happening. My guess is that it goes as the square of the number of bicyclers. The weather forecast is for good weather, but we don't yet know what the wind will be like. The terrain flattens out as we leave the Chapel Hill area and it's all downhill to the coast -- a whole 300 feet (100 m).
Steve is in room 110.
Today we got off early, about 8 am. After asking bicyclers yesterday about the North Carolina Bicycle Route 2 from Greensboro to Chapel Hill, and being told the hills weren't too bad. Chuck Tharp, a bicycler from Chapel Hill, originally suggested this route to us, and it was a big help in avoiding the traffic around here.
© Ray & Connie Poore, 1997