May 14, 2023
Day 2: Williamsburg - Charles City
On the Capital Trail on a sunny day
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For once we woke up at at a normal time rather than very early or too late. We headed downstairs and our host served us coffee, sticky buns, and quiche for breakfast, what a way to start the day.
We had a look at the map and decided we'd stay at Lawrence Lewis Jr. Park, by the river just out of Charles City. As we left the house I called the number listed for mandatory advanced reservations and it was the local council office, which was closed on Sundays.
We decided it was a problem for another day and biked into Colonial Williamsburg for another look. There I found a website I could book the campsite at so we found another place to sleep and that removed a little worry for our second day of biking.
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We headed through to a local Food Lion supermarket to stock up on some easy meals for the next couple days, just snacks and breakfast and some simple dinners. This style of supermarket wasn't too strange, we found products we recognised even if we can't yet work out what coffee creamer is made of. All we know is that it doesn't need to be refrigerated so we picked a pack up. We met another cyclist riding the TransAm, he had started that morning from Yorktown and came in from San Antonio, TX. We had had a late start with our big breakfast but seeing him already in Williamsburg made us realise how late we were.
We made tracks towards Jamestown Settlement, along the Colonial Parkway again. We spotted a few big hawks or eagle, possible even bald eagles since this is near a concentration area for breeding and migrating bald eagles.
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We rolled into the Jamestown museum to refill water and have a bit of a break. We didn't pay to go into this one, after being all museum'd out by now. The day was hot but not so humid, but we wanted to not run out of water like we had the day before.
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Leaving Jamestown we joined the Virginia Capital Trail. A fully separated paved trail that goes all the way to Richmond, which is much further than we'll be taking it. I was impressed with how nice this was, lots of people out biking today and a great surface to ride on. We stopped for another snack after an hour or 2 at Chickahominy river which was one of the possible locations we could have camped tonight but it wasn't quite far enough.
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Then we continued along the trail, taking more breaks as the day wore on and got hotter, until reaching Charles City. Now Charles City is a very small town, so I think someone got confused when naming it. But they had a gas station we bought some slushies and snacks. The cashier kindly gave us a paper bag full of single use mustard, mayo, and ketchup that we'll be working our way through for the next month.
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Then, it was onwards to our camp. We got got the whole campground to ourselves and had a nice evening having vege rice for dinner and spending time at the river.
We treated some of our gear with permethrin to keep ticks out and headed off to sleep.
No signal down here so this won't be posting until after we head off for the day, as we skirt the outside of Richmond.
Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 133 km (83 miles)
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