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June 25th 2004 (Friday)

Matt running across the USARacoon Branch Campground to Elk Garden United Methodist Church. It started raining heavily in the night and continued raining heavily throughout the day, with little pauses to drizzle. Packing up the tent- well everything was wet. The biking was through lovely wooded hills, right next to the highest peak in Virginia (Mt Rogers, a bit over 5000 feet). Didn't see Mt Rogers because, well, it was wet. Still, I was water cooled for the whole day which made things easier. A big wooded climb just before Elk Garden went over 3000 feet contour. Then down into a tiny settlement, which included this wonderful church which lets you sleep in the church and use the kitchen and toilets. Excellent. Met Matt and Laura who are doing a run (Matt) and cycle (Laura) across the USA for the sake of Measles Medical Care (heading for Rwanda later in the year). See their website at Across the USA. Also met Ben Ewig who looks incredibly well considering he'd fallen off his bike - seems to be composed entirely off muscle and wants to be an exercise scientist. Ben is heading for San Francisco, so he's doing the 'express route' transAm (as opposed to our wandering and deviatory route). Matt and Laura asks us what seems strange - we said, as one voice, - 'towns with no centres' (we'd had a bit of trouble with Christiansburg - which seems all out of town shopping mall and no centre AT ALL - we got very lost and kept ending up in the same bit of picket fence and rosebush suburbia). Matt said that English people still made Americans feel inferior (educationally). I suspect this is media portrayal of the English as a heap of Eton and Cambridge educated gentry. We are hoping for sun to dry out, tomorrow. The photo is of Matt running - taken the next day when we cycled past him and Laura.

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