Day 2: 80 Miles

I was too tired to write last night and feel the same today,  so this is going to be a short post about a very long day. We rode from Glendale to Mineral,  which was 80 miles.  We had numerous stops,  so it was a 12 hour riding day for me. The scenery was great and it was neat riding over 295 and 95 in places I've driven before. Each leg we ride is about 20 miles between stops.  First stop: Panera in Mechanicsville where I had a second breakfast of a smoothie and sandwich. Second stop was at a grille in Ashland where a local childhood friend happened to be home and stopped by to say hi while i chowed on a burger and fries. We had a member of the Richmond Area Bicycling Association join us for the ride.  He is in charge of maintaining that section of the Route 76 bike route,  so he knew the way very well and also shared history lessons along the way of the various battles that occurred in the Richmond area.
A friendly driver stopped and high 5'ed and said we are riding for him because he has MS. His excitement was awesome and made me feel really touched that he stopped to cheer us on.
The ride from stop 2 to 3 was really tough. I felt fatigued and mentally exhausted already,  and I still had 20 miles to go.  It was also getting really hot. We stopped at a country store gas station for ice cream in Bumpass. I changed into my swimsuit bottoms under my bike shorts and around 5pm we headed out on our last 15 miles of the day. About 7 miles in,  Chris and I found a place to get in and swim at Lake Anna. The water was surprisingly warm, but it was still very refreshing. We hung out until about 7.5 I think before tackling the very last miles of the day.  Chris and I felt very tired and we must hanging on to get to camp before dark.  We weren't the last ones in because others had also stopped to swim, so we quickly set up camp at the Mineral Firehouse. We ran across the street to the only restaurant that was open to have Mexican. I was in bed by 10:30 and slept fairly well,  despite sounds of cars,  dogs, someone walking around (probably just a fireman to check on us). Despite soreness,  it's time for another 60 mile day!