(picture: Will celebrating reaching our first 500 miles of the trip)

Date: 30 April 2011
Woke up in: James City County, Virginia
Fell asleep in: City of Suffolk County, Virginia
Miles ridden today: 55
Total miles ridden so far: 527.5
Weather: Sunny and warm. I have the sunburnt nose to prove it.

We cycled through a surprising number of familiar-sounding places today; Scotland, Highgate, the Isle of Wight and Suffolk – whilst skirting the edges of Portsmouth, Southampton and Windsor.

There was no hill in Highgate and the Virginian version of the Isle of Wight is very much landlocked. It’s odd to think that the people who settled these places ended up replicating the names, if not the characters, of towns and cities from their country of birth. Especially as so many of them seemed to have had good reason to leave the UK in the first place.

Another day of riding on predominantly flat (and wonderfully quiet) roads today, with highlights including the last seven miles or so of Virginia’s excellent off-road Capital Trail cycle route and a 10 minute ferry trip that took us to Scotland (no deep fried mars bars in evidence but give em’ time).

Most importantly, today we passed the 500 mile point in our trip. It sounds quite impressive – until I start thinking about how much further it is until Florida…

Big day planned for tomorrow – we’ve got to ride more than 75 miles to get to a campsite. I’d better go set the alarm; we need an early start!