Day 9 Still in Staunton - Virginia

Not much sleep again last night, the camp is lovely, set in the woods in the hills, with not to many others so no kids shouting and screaming, nice and peaceful, except from the distant noise of the traffic on the nearby Highway 81,but last night i was kept awake by the noisy insects and chirpy things. At least i think thats what it was and not the chat i had with the guy in the site office earlier last night. One thing has been on my mind lately, and i haven't been able to work out how to get an answer,and that is the small matter of the Bears,i know that at some point i will be moving into their 'neck of the woods' but didn't know when. So with an intro like '' I'm almost to embarrassed to ask'', i did ask. I am now armed with the knowledge that 'we only get brown bears around here, and the wont take any notice of you, just don't go near if they have little ones with them' thats fine i thought, so i went for a follow up question about snakes as i have been seeing  quite a few dead ones on the road, ''That is unusual, we don't usually see that many in the road,it has been quite dry lately, so maybe they are being forced to move around a bit more.  But generally, if their heads are a diamond shape or stick out from the body,then they are the ones to watch out for,if the head is inline with the body,then they are generally ok, they will just give you a bite, I've bitten a few times myself, like when i've grabbed for a log in the woodpile outback''

Thats ok then i thought just stay away from woodpiles,

'' Of course  as you go up in the mountains more, or go further west then there are the Jackals, the mountain lions, Links, Bob cats,and Wolves''

.......''Great''

One of the things about a trip like this is i can change things just like 'that', and that's what i did this morning. I was up at 7.30,all ready to  hit the road, when i thought ''why i don't i have a rest day'', it will give me a chance to sort out my blog and get a back log of pics downloaded.Sounds nice don't it?  Not quite as i imagined though,  working and  traveling  with my Asus  e pc has advantages and not,  some how i managed to shift a load of pics  to  apace i didn't want them, and  had great difficulty  getting them 'home ' again,  i got a bit worried that  i  might lose them.  So now i am  sitting on a swinging  seat  in the shady  porch of  a  wooden guest house,  much better than in the sun near my tent, got power and better wifi connection, however there is one little cloud,in that, flickr is not playing ball, and wont except my pics. Argh!

Speaking of clouds, there aren't any in the sky,and the sun is beating down, i think it is actually, more comfortable to be riding, after all you are gona get hot and sweaty any way!

I took the opportunity to have a good look at the maps, and have decided to stay on route 11 past Christiansburg and keep heading south, i think in that way i should be able to avoid most of the hard climbing over the Appellations, i kinda feel bad about it, but i must be sensible, in-spite of my efforts, i am still pullin a load, and if i've got a chance to go round then why not? I mean it's not as if i'm trying to prove anything is it?