Monkey off my bike

At last the much anticipated day off in Charlottesville, VA has arrived.  Between naps we will do laundry, go to Whole Foods (3.5miles), see as many C'ville sites of interest as possible and grab an extra nap in between.  I am not too proud to say that the effort to get to Charlottesville was great and I suffered exceedingly <sniff> as you will soon see.  But first, since its been a week, I will bring you up to date with a concise history:
Left Yorktown and rode to Chickahominy (~30miles).  The tent was nearly blown over by a squall that had us both out of the tent racing desperately to secure everything.  No rain.
Spent the next day in Jamestown and another night at Chickahominy.  Again, the squall but this time it was followed by enough rain to soak everything and more wind.  We spent some time in the ladies room at 1am.
After that, the days have gone like this:
Rise and eat breakfast of egg omelet and sausage, coffee.  Pack and pedal to a market en route where we stop , have lunch and buy something frozen (block o' veggie) and meat (usually ground beef and sausage), stow them in the small of competent cooler.  Ride to our destination and make camp or check in.  Eat, clean up, bed.  The cooler with a block o' veggie is cold enough to hold the meats and so far the eggs.  As the season progresses, we will probably have to modify this strategy, but we will see.

Map 146 of section 12 (yes...we are doing this thing backwards) has a "town" called Bumpass.  If  we are friends on Facebook, you will have seen the sign post.  Anyway, I had been eye-balling this section with interest and a little apprehension.  Interest due to the name, obviously, but the apprehension could only have been intuition.  So after our night of Mexican and Sleep Inn in Ashland, we stopped at the PO to send 7lb 6oz of 'superfluous' gear home (which Sam laments constantly) and headed west.  About 1/3 through the day's miles, I broke the cardinal rule of cyclo-touring....I cut too close to Sam's bike and my front pannier caught his back one.  This can happen when you get a little lazy, or are a little stupid, or haven't been sleeping well or any combination of the three.  In any case, the results are almost always the same....the person in back loses (that's me).  I managed to get the panniers separated but with 12 lbs of gear on the fork, I had no control.  Off into the ditch I went. The damage was this: I have a shiner (see below if not snacking) on my right thigh, an insignificant bruise on the left thigh, grass stains on my best jersey and a sore spot on my neck (hit my helmet but not on the pavement).  The bike fared much better. Sam had to turn the seat post and left side brake) back to the forward position and we soldiered on toward the Mineral VFD.  On a tour, you know these things are going to happen, statistically you cannot avoid them.  "Well," I said, dusting myself off, "At least that monkey's off my back"  NOTE: No Sams were harmed in the creating of this bruise.

Leaving Mineral, we headed out on our first 50+ mile day to get to Charlottesville.  Further insults awaited and are described in the very next post.