Update 4/17
Day #56
Today: Blackstone, VA, to Chesterfield, VA (46 miles)
Total miles: 3112
Tomorrow (plan): Chesterfield, VA, to Glenn Allen, VA
This morning we awoke to another clear day, but there was very little wind and it was not as cold as yesterday. After breakfast at a local restaurant we started out at about 9:00 AM on our day's journey along the winding country roads of Virginia. There was very little traffic on the roads I had selected, so the lack of a paved shoulder didn't present much of a problem and we made good time. Along one of the back roads, we encountered a group of five dogs that apparently decided we had invaded their territory, so they came out after us with vigor. The leader, a large black dog, seemed to be serious about catching up with us, and there was no way we were going to outrun him. I stopped the tandem, turned, and yelled at the pack, and this caused a couple of the dogs to at least slow down. Then Susan let out a shrill blast on the whistle we have been saving up for such a situation, and that did the trick. The leader stopped, and the other dogs followed suit. We had wondered if the whistle would be effective in a situation like this, and now we have confidence that it will be. We arrived in Chesterfield at the beautiful home of my West Point classmate Tom Russell and his wife Ann at 3:00 PM, so this was one of the shorter rides of our trip. We were ready for a short day after averaging almost 75 miles per day since our last rest day. We were pleased to meet one of the Russell's two sons, Sam, an Army Lieutenant Colonel who just recently returned from Iraq and is en route to move his family from Savannah, GA, to Ft. Lee, VA. We also met one of their two daughters, Lillian, her husband, and their son who is going to Clemson next year on a baseball scholarship. Ann treated the whole crowd to a delicious meal, quite a feat in itself. I got some suggestions about how to revise tomorrow's planned route across Richmond, and we then called it a night.