21 August 2008 - 2:37Road Trip

Well, a lot has happened ot me over the last week. Too much for one post, so instead of a long rambling and potentially uninteresting post, I will break it up into several small ones.

We set out on Wednesday afternoon, with stops in PA (to drop off the kiddo), Asheville NC and finally our final destination of Dahlonega, GA.  Instead of taking one of our aging heaps into the deep unknown south, I rented a car, which ended up being a Jeep Commander. Picture a big silver box on wheels. I stuffed the tent, banners, tools, bikes, DA’s stuff, my stuff and K-dog’s stuff in the back, and off we went. 

We left on Thursday morning, and with the boy dropped off at the grandparents, DA and I were free to execute some high level shenanigans. First was lunch. We had always joked about the KFC bowl, mashed potatoes, corn, fried chicken, gravy and cheese. All good things on their own, but do they work well together? It was time to see.

It wasn’t that bad.

We got to  Asheville pretty late, just in time to find a place to crash and head right out on the town to forage for food. Once fed, we crawled around a few of the local watering holes, finally staying at the Thirsty Monk. They were having some sort of competition to make a hat out of beer coasters, and DA decided he wanted a crack at the $500 prize. There were 2 hats, constructed over several beers. We were out very late.

Dave did not get the prize, which I think was a terrible shame, as he cleaned out the entire place of coasters, staples and tape.

Morning came, and we found a great spot for a down home southern breakfast. We had originally made plans to go to Industry 9, but they had taken a long weekend. We stopped at a Bio Wheels, and asked directions for a ride. We figured we had about 1-2 hours, and wanted to get a solid ride in. We were directed to the east side of the Pisgah National Forest. We rode Trace Ridge, a long forest road climb that lead to some grindy, hangover enhancing singletrack climbing, followed by a blistering high speed descent. 

We were advised that speed was our friend on this trail, and we heeded that advice. It seemed that just as you were becoming comfortable with your speed, the bottom would suddenly drop out, and you would go from smooth to rutted out in the blink of an eye. Thankfully, I had my Jet on this trip. I could change my mind at any time and pick a new or better line at will. The best part was at the bottom, where all of a sudden, the ends with a sudden and large drop off. I was in the air for quite some time, and when I finally came down, i had to grab two big handfulls of brake. DA was not far behind, and we sat there, laughing our asses off. I can’t wait to go back.

We got ourselves loaded back into the Jeep, and continued our journey south. We were only supposed to be in the car for another 4 hours. Google Maps picked us out a route, which we never seemed to be able to get right the first time. It did take us through some beautiful mountain passes though. The topography of south western North Carolina is breathtaking.

We got stuck behind a rather serious accident near the Georgia border for about 2 hours. Two vehicles had collided and overturned and had blocked the road. Not having a reliable GPS connection on my Blackberry, we opted to wait it out instead of getting really lost and hearing banjos. We were told by a fellow local stranded motorist that this was the same area that Eric Rudolph (1996 Olympic bomber) was hiding out before his final capture.

We eventually got to Dahlonega around 8, very tired.

This is where I’ll break, part II coming soon!