Day 3: Rocky Mount, NC to Chapel Hill, NC

Day three was action packed!  We left Rocky Mount around 7AM and eventually got off of highway 64 which had tons of cars and was really annoying to ride on.  After 64 we rode on Highway 98 which was great, not many cars, beautiful scenery (cows, cornfields and trees pretty much.)  We encountered some pretty big hills on 98 but it's good for us to get used to.  Vollmer Farm was one of the places we stopped for a break on 98.  They had some great homemade peach icecream and peaches which really hit the spot.  The owner of the farm John Vollmer sat down with us for a while.  He was a really nice guy and said that his farm used to be a tobacco farm but in the late 90's they began to shift to more vegetables and fruits.  He told us a little bit about organic farming, basically said that the regulations and certifications for organic farming are very intense and also the organic seeds have to be shipped from Kentucky, Vermont and or Colorado.  He said that usually one ton of regular fertility products for a certain crop is arounnd $200 whereas the organic fertility products for that same crop is almost $500.  John's farm is 50% organic and he hopes to expand into even more organic products.  He has started an organic delivery service for a lot of his customers close to the farm and the demand continues to grow. 

We continued down 98 in to old Wake Forest where the campus for Wake Forest University was until it moved to Winston-Salem in 1956.  We got our first flat tire as we arrived in Wake Forest.  Not a big deal, had it changed in 15 minutes, it felt good to have the first one behind us.  Then we ate lunch as this great place called "Over the Falls Deli and Pizzaria" where Brent and I ate an entire extra large pizza, which our waitress Angela was shocked about.  It really is ridiculous how much food we're eating.  As we were leaving Wake Forest I had a bit of a problem with the rear derailer on my bike, it was bent slightly so changing gears was a bit of a challenge, but no big deal to get to Chapel Hill.  As we rode in to Chapel Hill our buddy Ramy greeted us  and rode the last mile in on his mom's 24 year old Schwinn.  He was blowing by us with our trailers.  Ramy's mom made a feast for us: steak, pasta, salad, pie, it was great.  Then we headed to the Durham Bulls game which was awesome, their ball park was top notch, the night was perfect and the stadium was packed.  We sat with Brent's cousin Melanie and her son Andrew and daughter Sarah.  Brent was able to check "see a Durham Bulls baseball game" off his list and the Bulls won 3-1.  Overall, it was a great day but the first day we encountered some larger hills, we know it's just going to get more and more intense the further west we go in the state.  Thanks so much to Ramy's and his parents for having two really smelly bikers into their house and feeding them inordinate amounts of food.  Tomorrow is Chapel Hill to Winston Salem.

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Day 3 Pictures