May 12, 2006
Day 2: Chicahominy River to Mechanicsville: Homeless and well-fed
5:06:06, 11.0 avg
Day 2 was blessedly uneventful. I didn't fall off the picnic table, but some bug decided to bite me about 15 times on the hand that was sticking out of the sleeping bag. Most things had dried by morning, so we packed up and headed out with Brian and his beautiful custom bike with plenty of chrome bling. He helped Cristey adjust some more things and told us a few more stories as we pedaled down the road
The next free camping was at Willis Church, but we got there too early to stop for the day. I was kind of dragging and might have stopped since there were few camping opportunities for WAY more miles than I wanted to do that day, but with Brian, I knew we'd figure something out. We met a few little hills, had some gatorade, sat in a couple of shade trees...the usual touring events of the day. When we got to Mechanicsville, Brian was starving, so we hit up a burrito place to fill our empty stomachs. Already, I'm eating more (and more often), so food is good. Brian said he couldn't go to a restaurant with two pretty girls in lycra and not buy, so we ended up with free dinner.
Then the hunt for a place to stay. Nobody seemed to know of any hotels around but the radisson, which was a little out of our budget. The next camping was more than 10 miles up the road, and neither C nor I were ready for that. We contemplated our options in a service station parking lot while Brian investigated.
No luck. We decided to go on and look for a friendly church. And not two blocks later, what should appear but a friendly looking church with some friendly looking people in the parking lot! Cristey and I decided to look cute and homeless and ask if we could camp there, but they didn't go to that church and didn't know what to tell us. Moments later, in pulls the youth pastor, who makes a call to see if we can stay and informs us that 28 homeless people are coming in for the night as a part of some roving homeless shelter ministry thingy.
Cristey and I start setting up camp while Brian gets the grand tour with the pastor. Brian came back all excited, saying they were offering us food and showers and whatever else since they were housing the homeless people anyway and had plenty of food.
We went and took showers quickly and offered to help with anything, but they said they'd have plenty of help anyway. As I was chatting with the volunteers, I found that one of them graduated high school in the town where I now live. And then they asked if we could maybe talk to some of the kids coming in and just show them that there's a big world outside of Richmond, Virginia.
Cristey and Brian stayed behind the church much of the evening chatting about bike things and life while I went in and started talking to the kids. They wanted to see the tents, so they invaded our little campground and were absolutely appalled that we had to hang our clothes (even our underwear!) out to dry outside. People from the church help them do laundry, so it kind of magically gets done. It was strange, though, to have homeless kids looking down on our laundry. And pretty funny.
I herded the kids back to the play area and talked with more of the adults, letting them talk about themselves or ask questions about the trip or whatever. There was this one outbreak by a little kid who said the bigger girls weren't letting him play soccer, so when the girls got called over to tell their side of the story and got yelled at for not taking turns, I leaned over and told the girls that they looked like they were really good soccer players and I bet they could be good coaches and teach the little guy how to play. They took to their new coaching roles right away, and there were no problems the rest of the evening.
Today's ride: 56 miles (90 km)
Total: 93 miles (150 km)
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