{"id":886,"date":"1988-09-01T23:47:00","date_gmt":"1988-09-01T23:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/?p=886"},"modified":"2026-08-25T23:09:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:09:14","slug":"natural-bridge-va","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/natural-bridge-va\/","title":{"rendered":"Natural Bridge, VA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In the morning, just as I was pedaling out of Christianburg, a beat-up old brown pickup matched speed with me, and the woman inside called out something. I couldn’t make out what it was the first time, but it sounded friendly, so I prepared my usual list of answers for people who talked to me from cars: “About ten weeks.” “4500 miles” “Florence, Oregon.” “It’s not really that hard.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman shouted, “Excuse me, do I know you?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Pardon me?” I answered, turning my head. My jaw dropped. It was Stephanie! We both pulled onto a side street to talk.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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She was having breakfast with her friend at a restaurant when she saw me ride by, and told her friend, “I’m going to catch him!”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Stephanie seemed excited and gave me a big hug. It turned out that she worked in Christianburg, and lived in nearby Ellett. She recapped her adventure. She had toured in Colorado, got caught in a lightning\/hailstorm on a 12,000-foot pass, went into Arkansas, and finished up on the Mississippi River, where her boyfriend picked her up. Steph said that the road ahead was an exciting downhill for miles.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Woodland Hills near Roanoke. Across the street was a sign, “Lot #1 5.94 Acres for sale, $35,000”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This photo remains a mystery to this day. I tried to take a picture of some animal. Google Lens guesses a dog or coyote. I think it might be a rabbit bolting away.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I wanted to see Natural Bridge, which was hailed all over Virginia as being the “8th wonder of the world.” I couldn’t locate the thing, or even the park where it was supposed to be, so I stopped at a campground for the night.<\/p>\nI have a vague memory of camping under a shelter, and seeing a pea-sized tick-like bug crawling across the concrete. It wasn’t a spider. I put a drop of repellent on it, but it didn’t die.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the morning, just as I was pedaling out of Christianburg, a beat-up old brown pickup matched speed with me, and the woman inside called out something. I couldn’t make out what it was the first time, but it sounded friendly, so I prepared my usual list of answers for people who talked to me … Continue reading Natural Bridge, VA<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":892,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions\/892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}