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Once again we were up at 4:15 AM and on the road at 5:23 AM. It was very dark out so I told Tina to keep her head on a swivel. Then as we got into worse areas, such as pitch black parks, trails and side roads I told Tina we are turning off our tail lights so we would be hard to follow. What I thought was good advice turned out to worry Tina even more and her heart rate shot up like she was pedaling up a 13% grade. It was 7 miles of not so fun for me and pure terror for Tina. Then as the sun was coming up at about the 7 mile mark we were heading through a really bad area and pulled up to a stoplight. I glanced right and saw what appeared to be a gang fight with about 8 guys that you would not want your daughter dating. They were moving in our direction and only a few hundred feet away. There was not a car in sight (I wonder why?) so all I said was “lets go” and we blew the light and got the hell out of there. After that all was good and Tina’s heart rate got back to normal (for the time being).  Then came the hills and the heat so we keep doing the smart thing by drinking tons of liquid but are making more resupply stops. All was going well until we turned down a road with a pretty long hill. Part way down we started seeing road closed signs but me being the optimist could not imagine it would be closed to bicycles, WRONG! We got to the bottom and I rode right up to the sheriff and told him our situation and that we needed to pass. He was very nice when he said SORRY. He, another cyclist and a motorist all helped us figure out a way around but it meant climbing back up the hill we just came down, UGH!! Anyway after maybe a 5 mile detour we were back on track. Made it to our hotel at 3 PM sweaty and stinky like always……..Tomorrow through DC to Virginia