Silver Comet

Kind of a theme lately... Normally an after-work ride on the Silver Comet wouldn't be worth writing about, but yesterday there was a copperhead hanging out on the trail, and I was able to get a photo of it.

Woo!

"Copperhead... very dangerous."

Blankets Creek, Rope Mill, and Toonigh Falls

This past week was absolutely exhausting. I put in some good after-work miles three of the days, but spent the other two buying a car for my youngest, putting tires on it, and getting all the paperwork in order with the tag office and insurance. All that on top of just normal work. Exhausting. You'd think I'd spend the weekend in the mountains, given how well it went the previous weekend, but no. This past Saturday I had no motivation to drive anywhere. I'd done all the driving in the world last week. Instead, I got up kind-of early, and took it easy at Blankets Creek, Rope Mill, and Toonigh Falls.

In fact, it was such a lackluster ride, that I wouldn't normally even write about it, except for a couple of interesting details.

Apparently lots of people hike to Toonigh Falls from Rope Mill and from the local neighborhood. I had no idea it was so popular. I passed like two dozen people on the way in and out. At least.

The falls:

When I was there last, I saw a trail leading away from the top of the falls off into the neighborhood, so I figured I'd see where it went. I'd hoped that it led to the back of the neighborhood pool or the end of a street or soemthing, but no, it splits in two, but both branches just go to people's houses.

Drunk people at the falls got a kick out of watching me cross the top with my bike. "A real pro would ride it!" "Ha ha! A real pro would know better than to even try to cross this!"

On the way in, I passed a group of people laughing about something in the trail. It turned out that a pair of turtles were getting it on, right there, dead in the middle of the trail. The male had fallen over backwards, but was undeterred. How often do you see that?

On the way back, they were still there, in the same spot, still at it.

Go for it you guys! Make more turtles.

Back near Rope Mill, a family was heading out towards the falls, and the dad was like "Come on Iz, right through here..." Iz? I have an Iz! "Did you call her Iz? Like Isabel?" "Yeah! But Iz for Isadora. We almost named her Isabel." "Cool! I have an Isabel and we call her Iz. You don't usually hear that. Cool that you guys came up with the same nickname!"

And that was about it for interesting stuff. It was a fun ride, but it was also super hot, a little wet, and wasn't really feeling it that day. I didn't even ride all of the trails.

Yesterday, I fixed cars all day, which sucked, but I wasn't in the mood for physical exertion, so I guess it was a good day for it. I got in some easy road miles today, but IDK, I'm not feeling that great these days. I've been making a concerted effort to stay hydrated, and it's been helping, but I have that same discomfort in my chest again. Just sitting here now, I have it. Not bad, but it's there.

I don't know. I don't like it.

Noontootla

A day after my Cooper Gap fail, and subsequent auto repair, I was back at it. With the previous day's rain though, and the marginal, but not 0% chance of it that day, I figured I should stick to gravel, so I grabbed some Waffle House, headed up to Ellijay and hung a right towards Noontootla.

As I turned left onto Mill Creek Road, a Scooby-Doo van turned left from Mill Creek Road onto 52, and I was like: "Ha! Scooby-Doo van!" It had been a while since I'd seen one. Then, about a minute later I saw another one. What are the odds? Well, it turns out they're pretty good. One of the local tubing companies (I forget which one) paints all of their vans like the Mystery Machine. In fact, the last time I saw one, it was probably one of theirs.

A little further on, I want to say on Doublehead Gap Road proper, I saw vultures eating an armadillo. I'm not sure what the exact range of armadillos is, but I've always heard that they are alleged not to exist in the National Forest. Though I wasn't quite in the National Forest, I was really close. That one had to have been at the absolute upper limit of their range.

I parked at the Fellowship Baptist Church...

...adding my truck to the long line of vehicles which appeared to have delivered other cyclists to the same destination. Before long, I was climbing Noontootla.

Some ways up, there had been a bit of a rockslide, and someone had put up a couple of barricades. They weren't all still in place though.

I'm guessing the previous day's furacão was to blame.

I had a great time climbing Noontootla.

It was really hot, but I was making sure to just pound that water. No need to be conservative. There is water everywhere up there.

Another rider passed me, descending herself. I think I've only descended Noontootla once. It's kind-of fun, but given the various route options up there, I prefer to climb it.

I always remember that there are 2 difficult kicks at the top of Noontootla, but I didn't notice them that day. Instead, I was surprised to just see a car parked ahead of me at Winding Stair Gap. "Oh, I'm here, I guess."

It was damp and rough on the way down Winding Stair, and my gloves were as soaked as gloves can be. No PRs were set on that descent.

There were a dozen or more folks on dirt bikes in the old game check lot near Bull Mountain, to whom I waved. While I hadn't noticed the kicks at the top of Noontootla, I did notice Little Bitch Gap on 28-A. It always sucks.

I passed a car descending towards Montgomery Creek, then struggled to stay comfortably ahead of it heading towards Camp Wahsega. I didn't want to play leapfrog, but I didn't want to hold them up either. As I neared the camp, I slowed down and let them catch and pass. Better there than in the curve after the camp.

Speaking of the camp, it's looking pretty good these days.

In years past, there were times when I wasn't sure it was even still open.

It's tough to stay on the gas through the rollers near Camp Merrill, and it's easy to blow yourself up and suffer up to Cooper Gap. So, I resisted the urge to push through it, and eventually sat back and spun. This turned out to have been wise.

Cooper Gap Road...

My nemesis from the day before.

This time it worked out fine. No rain, just heat. There are a couple of curves up near Cooper Gap proper, but much like the kicks at the top of Noontootla, I didn't notice the curves, and just found myself at the gap, unexpectedly. It was a nice surprise, but it did make me wonder if I was really paying good attention or not.

Funny thing... I did have the song "Jessie's Girl" stuck in my head for most of the ride, for some reason. So, maybe that was a factor.

Obligatory photo of the quarry:

From there on, there was almost nothing I could do to get my phone to take a photo. I was just way, way too sweaty. The fingerprint thing couldn't read my finger. The touch screen didn't register any touches, no matter how I flexed the case. I couldn't just slide the screen up to the accessories. Siri wasn't listening. So, no photos for most of the rest of the ride.

It was good that I'd taken it easy through the Ranger rollers because the rollers across the top of the mountain were tougher than I remembered, and it was nice to have a bit of energy up there. At Hightower Gap, I noticed a 15mph speed limit sign. I think I'd seen another one earlier in the day too. Ha! Fat chance of that. I hope it doesn't apply to bikes.

At Rock Creek Lake, there was a stocking chute that I'd never noticed before. I tried to get a photo, but no luck. Similarly, I tried to get obligatory photos of the hatchery and Shady Grove Church. Nope.

Someday, I'm going to have to hike the FS333 area and explore the various side roads and trails out there. I noticed quite a few that I'm not sure I've ever noticed before.

When I pulled back onto Doublehead Gap Road, my mind was in this mode that I call "perpetual retrospect", which I love when I can get into. I may have mentioned it before... When you think back on some fun, epic, beautiful, interesting, or otherwise good time, it's almost always more poignant in retrospect than it was when you were doing it. If, while doing it, though, you imagine yourself in the future, thinking back on that moment that you're experiencing right then, that same poignance will strike you, while you're actually doing the thing. Sometimes you have to prime it by just reflecting on a few moments ago. It's tricky, and it doesn't always work out, but I try to get myself into that mode whenever I'm doing something cool, even if it's something that shouldn't really be that great at the moment, like getting stuck in the rain. Perpetual retrospect. It's great. Give it a try.

So, anyway, I really enjoyed the scenic ride back along Doublehead Gap Road. The whole road is paved these days, so the ride is easier than it used to be. A lot of the properties along the road have been renovated too, and there were families enjoying them. There was one house with like 5 guys sitting out on the porch, grilling something, but otherwise just sitting around talking. We waved to each other.

At the top of the last kick before descending back to my truck, a lady in a Prius pulled over the top of the hill, rolled down her window and stopped. Our conversation went something like:

"Please! I beg you to stop. I need your help!" (but not in a super serious tone)

"Whatcha got?"

"I've been driving around for like 20 minutes. My map cut out, I've got no phone service, and I have no idea where I am."

"Yeah, that's North Georgia for you."

"We have a house in Ellijay, and there's service there, but out here, suddenly there's nothing!"

"Ha! Yeah, that's where you are. Where are you looking to go?"

"Anywhere really, just any major highway!"

"Well, if you turn around and drive straight, without turning, the road will change names several times, but if you just stay straight, in about 20 miles, you'll hit Hwy 52. Take a right and it goes to Ellijay."

"What if I keep going this way?"

"In about 4 or 5 miles you'll hit Hwy 60."

"Hwy 60! I know where that is. Thanks! I'll give that a try!"

"Good luck!"

And she sped off. I hope she figured it out. I don't think there's service in either direction on Hwy 60 for quite a while.

When I got back to the truck, I realized just how muddy everything was.

Again, it wasn't slippery or muddy per-se, just a little wet, but it was enough to make all the little bits accumulate, eventually. Blah!

On the way back home, I pulled off of Hwy 52 for a second, to see The World's Largest Squidbilly.

I'd seen it on the way in, but figured I'd see it again, which I did.

Getting back on to Hwy 52 from their little parking lot required 4WD and high ground clearance. Fortuantely I had both, but from the looks of it, people have gotten stuck trying.

For dinner, I went back to the River Street Tavern and ate a French Dip at their bar. It really, really hit the spot, and I walked out with that whole body tired and those comfort protiens working their magic.

The drive home was uneventful, and if I remember correctly, I crashed out earlier than usual.

All in all, a pretty good day.

Cooper Gap

A little over a week ago, I'd been feeling good for a while, and I wanted to get up in the real mountains.

I had an ambitious plan, but I felt ready for it, so I drove up to Dahlonega, parked at the Mt. Zion Church, and headed up FS80 towards Cooper Gap.

I was moving along, feeling good, and making good time, when I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye, followed a second later by the loundest thunder I'd heard in a long time.

Great.

The rain came down gently at first, so I figured I'd just push on through it. I hadn't seen any particularly ominous clound on the way in. Maybe it was an isolated storm.

Well, isolated or not, within a few minutes, it was really coming down. Cold, painful, hammering rain. I could see maybe 100 feet. I pushed on until I just didn't want to any more, which was just above Sky Orchard.

Between the rain itself, and the thin mud that my tires kicked up, the descent back to the truck was slow and annoying. I truck even passed me coming down the mountain. I don't think that's ever happened before.

I paused for maybe 10 minutes under the porch of the church...

...hoping it would just pass, but it didn't, and I gave up.

The drive back to Dahlnoega was extremely sketchy. The front tires on my truck were super cheap, and garbage enough when they actually have tread on them, and that was like 15000 miles ago. It was a serious challenge to stay in my lane.

Peoples gravel driveways were getting washed out across the road. It was biblical.

Then, I drove out of it and never saw it again, all the way home. I guess a front came through, right there, heading south, and I just missed whatever path it took after that.

4 hours of windshield time for under 4 miles of riding. Whenever something like that would happen, my brother and I would always joke that a guardian angel was protecting us from some more severe catastrophe, like a rock slide, or getting mauled by a bear or something. But, it's usually a theoretical rock slide or bear attack. We'd rarely get to actually see what would have happend. Well, that day, I did.

On the way home, the bearing in my truck's tensioner pulley siezed and blew into a million pieces. The belt, subsequently, shredded and no longer drove the power steering, AC, or alternator. Fortunately, my water pump is separate from all of that. Ha ha, good thinking Ford. As it was, I was able to limp to the nearest O'Reilly, and between it and the Advance across the street, I was able to buy a new belt and pulley, and fix it all, during daylight, in the parking lot. If I'd been able to do the ride I wanted to do, there's a very good chance I'd have had the same failure in the dark, after both stores had closed. I'd have been spending the night in my truck, waiting for them to open, and the next day would have been ruined as well.

So, ha! Thank you, guardian angel.

Allatoona

As with Cochran Mill a few posts ago, a ride at Allatoona wouldn't usually be worth mentioning. However, the ride I did up there a few weeks ago kind-of is.

I'd ridden there a week or so earlier, and felt absolutely terrible. I'd felt ok on the Rusty Bucket and various Mason's loops, but when I got on Driftwood, there was a guy behind me that was pretty evenly matched, and we rode together for that whole loop and a loop of Wildcat. I've had trouble for about a year now where my chest just kind-of hurts both on and off the bike. Maybe "hurts" is the wrong word. I experience discomfort. Well, about halfway around Wildcat I was really feeling it. It was so bad that I actually stopped for a minute or two. The whole rest of the ride it didn't really get much better, so I ended up calling it quits after Wildcat.

I tried to get in good sleep all week though, and had felt ok on after-work rides, so I figured I'd go back to Allatoona and finish what I'd started the last time. I felt good all the way through Wildcat this time, pretty good through whatever that new trail is, and ok on Mumbo Jumbo. I mean, it was like a normal long ride - fun, then work, then eventually suffering. I'd just gotten into the work phase at that point, so I still felt pretty good about it.

I had to tiptoe across a single 2x6 and roll my bike across a parallel 2x6 to get onto Voodoo, which was fun. Voodoo itself was difficult though, and I was fully into the suffering phase on Hocus Pocus.

I was notably low on water, and though it's been in the low-to-mid 90's all summer, it's also been absurdly humid. The heat index has been in the low-to-mid hundreds. I'd been wrestling with that chest discomfort since stepping onto Voodoo.

It was back in there that it occurred to me that, at least some of the time, it may just be that I've been needing to pound water harder than I have been. When racing 6-hours I used to go through 20oz an hour (one bottle) on a hot day. Not racing, I've always needed less than that. Heck, I'd recently ridden the Mill Creek loop on 2 bottles, in the heat. But that was also in the mountains, and it's a bit cooler up there, and yeah, you need legs, but maybe wrestling singletrack makes you sweat more?

By the time I got back to the lot, my chest really hurt, and I was basically in limp mode. I wondered if I could pound some water, recover, and finish the lap.

It turned out yes. I drank nearly 40 oz (two bottles) sitting there at the bathrooms, and in under 10 minutes, felt great. It took another 10 minutes or so to get up to full power, but I was able to ride Turtleback and Red Baron like I was fresh on the bike.

The funniest thing was that, coming back into the lot after the full lap, I just happened to run into that same guy that I'd ridden with the week before. We talked for a while, and I described all of this to him. "Yeah, it's hot!"

I'm not sure that the root of the problem is dehydration, but since then I've made an effort to pound water on by after-work rides, and for the most part I've been able to stay strong the entire time, without discomfort, so whatever's going on, I can side-step it by staying hydrated. I've always heard that when you get behind on water, your blood viscosity increases and your heart has to work harder. I've experienced that as poor performance in the past, and definitely experienced it as poor performance during this ride, but I've never experienced it as discomfort, until this year. I suspect that there's something else going on. Dehydration exposes it. Maybe some other things do too. Staying hydrated helps, in that it doesn't put me in that situation. I think I've still got some work to do on a solution though.

It had been slightly wet out there all day. Not enough to make it slippery, but enough to cake everything with dirt and debris.

Later on, when all of that dried, I ended up just brushing it off, and was about 90% clean. Later I ended up in a swimming pool, and that took care of the remaining 10%.

I couldn't tell all day, but when I finally got home that evening, it appeared that my sunscreen regiment had been inadequate the day before.

Oh, well. I tried!

Little River

I said I'd be paddling again, given the chance, and the chance came again a few weeks ago. Most of me was barely recovered from the horrible sunburn the previous time, and my ankles were still raw and scabby, but that just builds character, right?

John and most of his family were planning on paddling out of Rope Mill, down the Little River, into Lake Allatoona, and back. He, Kseniya, and Lauren had boards. Marie just sits on the front of John's board because she's pretty little, and there were 2 pack rafts for Austin and I. I figured the raft couldn't be much more difficult than the board, if at all, so I was in.

Again, I grabbed some chicken sandwiches from the Waffle House on the way out of town, but this time I brought a couple of 32-oz gatorades rather than the 20-oz'ers I'd brought last time. We all met at Rope Mill, punctually, and got everything inflated. I applied sunscreen even more liberally than I had the last time, not wanting a repeat. I even got Austin to hit my back with it so there'd be no question of coverage. Then, we stood in line while the 6 or 8 people ahead of us tried to figure out how to get into the water. After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only about 15 minutes, we eventually gave up, walked to the other side of the bridge, and were all in the water within a minute or two. All 6 of us. We couldn't figure out what the other folks were having such trouble with. In retrospect, there's probably some bank-erosion-related reason to use the dock, but it didn't occur to me at the time.

It turns out the pack raft is both easier and harder than the paddle board. You're kind-of lying down in it, so it's pretty comfortable, but it works your abs constantly, so you've got to have decent core strength. It moves much faster on the water, but it really likes to twist. Unlike the paddle board, which I had to learn how to turn, this thing I had to learn how to NOT turn. It's tricky to keep from hitting the sides of it with the paddle, and squeaking constantly, and water drips onto you constantly. I couldn't have cared less, but I can imagine people becoming annoyed with all of this and that eventually leading to paddle boards. I wonder if that's part of their origin story.

At any rate, we paddled north towards the lake, and it was great.

Kseniya wasn't too happy with the quality of the water. IDK, having grown up in Louisiana, it looked as good or better than every body of water I'd ever been in or on. I've seen plenty of clean clear water in North Georgia, but only because it's all very fast moving. I didn't specifically remember what the Chattahoochee looked like, in comparison. I wouldn't have thought about it except that it was mentioned, but also, I have two instances of experience with such things and she has dozens or more. Now I'm curious what good quality, slow-moving water is like.

The original plan was just to paddle out into the lake and turn around, but I mentioned Toonigh falls along the way, and everybody got curious about it. I'd ridden to it on my bike a couple of times, but always in some season that would suck to get into the water during, so it was always deserted. On a day like that day though, there would probably be people, and the water would be great.

I basically knew how to get there, but even if I hadn't, it seemed like that was pretty much where everybody else on the river was going, so we ended up changing plans and heading to the falls instead of out into the lake.

Yep. Popular spot on a day like that.

The falls itself is very ledgy, and though the rocks are pretty slippery, there are plenty of places to stand or sit and hang out.

My favorite part though, was The Cliff of Death. It's probably not actually named "The Cliff of Death" but me and Mark Graham used to call any such cliff that you could jump off of into water "The Cliff of Death". Particularly cliffs at water parks, but real life cliffs too, eg. there was one on the Bogue Chitto River.

Be assured that there were flips.

Front and back flips. No grace though, just ridiculous flips. Like throwing an anvil into the water.

The water was deep enough, but not especially deep. You'd hit the bottom if you didn't jackknife and put your arms out as soon as they went in. I kept opening up too soon though, and got some decent bruises on my triceps and forearms.

John and Kseniya weren't having any of that stupidity, but me and Austin and Marie and Lauren were.

Marie:

Lauren:

I was impressed with how brave and capable they were, though we did have to count down from 5 or 10 sometimes before jumping.

I ate one of my sandwiches and definitely drank more than 40 oz of gatorade, so I was glad I brought the 32-oz bottles. I also reapplied sunscreen a few times as I was fairly certain that hitting the water so violently, repeatedly, and frequently was probably wearing it off.

We hung out there for a satisfyingly long time, though I'm not sure exactly how long, then we headed back.

Back was entirely upstream against the current, but I couldn't have told you that there was any current. It felt the same as heading downstream.

Getting out was a little challenging. The weird dock is supposed to make it easier, but I think it only makes it easier for kayaks. That may have been the problem that all those folks were having putting in.

Kseniya had to be somewhere urgently, so when I looked up, John was driving away, and it was just me and Austin in the lot. I'd brought my bike just in case I felt like riding, but I definitely did not feel like riding. Instead, we were both pretty hungry, so we ran by one of Austin's favorite spots in Woodstock called Cylantros. It's a Venezuelan restaurant in the corner of a gas station, as all awesome Central and South American restaurants seem to be. They were like "Hey Austin" when he walked in. Ha ha! I had various tacos. All were delicious, but the shrimp taco was the best. I'm definitely eating there again.

Woohoo, two successful paddling adventures in one summer. Let's do it again!

Cochran Mill

An after-work ride at Cochran Mill wouldn't usually be worth writing about, but this one is a little interesting. It was just over a week after getting the second-worst sunburn of my life, and I thought that I'd managed to get through it without peeling very much. I wasn't red any more, except for my ankles, which looked the same as they had on the day they got burned. I'd peeled a little in a few spots, but nothing significant.

Boy was I wrong!

I rode a standard Yellow-Red lap, and when I arrived back at the truck, and pulled off my gloves, I pulled most of my skin off with them.

Dead skin zombie hand right there.

Both hands looked like that, and the sweat had made massive bubbles everywhere that I'd been burned, which exploded at the slightest touch, with the most amazing cooling senation. It's been like 30 years since I last felt that. I just haven't been burned that badly since my High School Senior Trip.

My ankles were a similar story. Though, the blisters under my socks peeled all the way down to live skin.

Both would blister again later.

Probably not good for me.

On a lighter note, I've been seeing what are apparently known as be "barn quilts" popping up on every structure in the entire Chattahoochee Hills area for the past few years. I always wondered what they were. Now I know!

And, apparently you can take a tour! I'm totally doing that.

Chattahoochee River

My brother and his girlfriend have invited me to go paddle boarding with them a few times. In the past, something has always come up, but just over a month ago, it all worked out.

The plan was to put in at some park in Roswell, paddle up to this rock, somewhere upstream, party for a few hours, then float back. Having never done anything vaguely like that since I was a kid in a canoe at summer camp in the '80s, I had no idea if that would be easy, hard, fun, work, or suffering. John assured me that it would be easy: "This is not what I think of as a performance sport." But, you never really know until you try. Eg. John can tread water, pretty much indefinitely, but I have a hell of a time with it. I must just be doing something wrong but nobody has been able to demonstrate what or how to fix it.

We arrived at what we thought was the right place, but it turned out not to be. Fortunately we hadn't unpacked much when we figured it out.

The right place was a few miles away, and it turned out I'd been there before, several times. Once while exploring some trail, once more hiking with Kathryn at the Wells Tract, and a third time when I'd ridden from Cumming to downtown Atlanta and back.

John unloaded everything and inflated the paddle boards. The whole process was alien, but it all made sense mechanically. The only strange thing was the diverse and unintuitive mechanisms for attaching the fins.

I put in and paddled around a bit, trying to figure it all out. If you look up paddle boarding on youtube you find lots of videos of people falling, and just intiutively it seems super unstable - like trying to ride a skateboard with your feet together, facing forward. It turns out though, yeah, it's pretty easy. You have plenty of balance. Or, I did at least. Turning was the trickiest part for me, you have to actually actively paddle yourself in a circle to turn, you don't just lean or do some subtly different stroke. This one lady Marianna (I think) could tell I was a noob and demonstrated some of it. That really helped.

Before long, I had marginally adequate skills to start heading upriver, and so we did. I almost crashed into Kseniya and then almost fell off of the board almost immediately, but fortunately neither happened, and we proceeded without incident from there. I tried to stay with the lead group, in case something went wrong, my brother and Kseniya would catch up to me and potentially help.

I want to say about 1/3rd of the way up we all stopped at some dock and hung out for a bit. John was right though, it was not especially strenuous. I mean, you could make it difficult if you wanted, but keeping up with pretty much everybody else wasn't wearing me out. Another 1/3rd of the way up we stopped at a sandbar for a while. The stops were cool because you could socialize a bit. IDK what other people do, but I couldn't easily keep a conversation going while paddling. I'd be too far away, or too focused on what I was doing.

I did figure out a few things, but they were all contradictory... You can move faster in still water. The water is more still where it's deep, but it's also more still where it's super shallow. The outside of a bend tends to be shallow and the inside deep, but the water moves much faster on the inside of a bend, and it's more turbulent. The outside is a longer disance. So, aim for still water as close to the inside of the bend as you can reasonbly be?

It's apparently better if you use your core by bending at your waist than by just using your arms. Quick strokes are good sometimes, long strokes other times. It's difficult to keep from pulling to the right or left, but that's where all your efficiency is wasted...

Lots of stuff that's probably intuitive to people who've done it more than once, I'm sure.

We finally got to the party rock after paddling for many hours.

And, man it was a party!

This is the board I'd been piloting.

Apparently you want to keep as much of it as possible in the water on a hot day like that one. One of the boards exploded while we were sitting there, just from the heat increasing the pressure inside of it.

We hung on on the rocks for quite a while. I'd brought a couple of bottles of gatorade and two chicken sandwiches from Waffle House to eat. It was plenty of food, but I wish I'd had more to drink.

I'm not 100% sure where we were, but I'm pretty sure I could find it again. There were a bunch of rocks where we were, and upstream, there was an island.

Apparently this specific get-together happens annualy, and this guy Dave always brings steak up to the rock, cooks it with a blowtorch, and lets everybody have a go at it:

We stayed at the rock for a couple of hours, and I reapplied sunscreen religiously. I can ride around on the roads or in the woods all day, but it's not the same as being on the water.

Eventually the party broke up and everybody started floating home.

Me and John and Kseniya linked our boards together.

By "linked" I mean put feet on each other's boards and roughly held them together like that.

We stopped at the sandbar on the way back for a few minutes, but nobody really wanted to prolong the day at that point, so that didn't last too long.

I don't remember what time we got back, but I do remember that I could already see that I was burned well before we were off the water. Ugh.

The next day, I was properly burned.

It took about a week for most of me to heal. My ankles though... Good lord. I guess wearing socks prevented them from healing. A week later they were as red as ever. If I'd stand for more than about 10 seconds in one position, one or the other would hurt terribly. I could shuffle around to fix it, but try doing that when you're trying to pee. Sitting down didn't help. If I wasn't lying down, my feet had to be moving. I eventually started wearing my barefoot shoes everywhere and it made all the difference in the world. The healing began, and before long I was super blistered. I remember me and the kids were watching some movie, I had my right ankle on my left knee, and i suddenlty I felt a torrent of water pour down my left leg. Apparently the various blisters had coalesced and busted open all at once. I couldn't believe how much fluid poured out. It looked like someone had spilled a drink on the theater floor. Sorry about that, theater people. It took over a month to fully heal.

So, paddle boarding is pretty fun. It's less about being active, and more about hanging out, like light hiking, I guess, but that counts as fun. I'll defintiely be doing more of it, if I get the chance.

Berry College

Oh, man, it's been forever since I've written anything. Where does the time go?

Early last month, me and Billy rode all around Berry College. I hadn't been there in forever, and we were both in the mood for a less strenuous effort, so it seemed like a good place to ride.

Since I needed to carry two bikes, I had an opportunity to use my second tray!

My folks got it for me for Christmas. I'd planned on visiting them for Christmas, but I got sick a few days before I was supposed to leave, and wasn't well for two months. So, it was some time in April I think, that I finally picked it up.

My favorite thing is how the levers are slightly different between the two trays.

I may have mentioned this before, but one of my favorite things in the world is when two of the same things are slightly different. There are various reasons - parts availability, cost reduction, complexity reduction, redesign, personal preference... If you look at a bunch of team bikes, the wheels and seats will all be different. If you go to Waffle House, check out the waffle irons, one of them will have a different handle, or the stickers will be different or something. It's everywhere. It comforts me. When I don't see it, I feel like "this environment hasn't been wrung out yet" or "this is just pretending to be reality." That kind of thing.

But I digress.

I picked Billy up and we drove up to Berry College. I didn't have a super-good memory of how to get there, so I had to kind-of divine my way. We figured it out though, parked in the Old High School Road lot, got dressed, and hit the trail.

"The trail" being Old High School Road, with it's cool old bridges...

...and cabins.

The road leads from the main campus to the "mountain campus" which sits at the foot of, and slightly up the slope of, Lavender Mountain. The typical route up the mountain from there is the "Hurtin' Gator" trail, which climbs right up the face of the mountain. I guess the name means to indicate that it ought to be a painful climb if you're from Florida. We did not climb that.

Instead, we took CCC Road out to the highway.

Along the way we saw lots of logging.

The road itself just seems interminable.

Long, straight roads like that are somewhat rare in Georgia, so as weird as it may sound, they're a bit of a treat when you find one.

When we got out to the pavement, we stopped for a second for some reason that I can't remember now before heading north.

Oh, I remember why now... It had been a long time since I'd ridden out there. I remembered that we needed to turn off of the highway onto Scenic Road, but I wasn't sure if there was some intermediate road between them or not, so we checked the map. Turns out no, Scenic Road intersects the highway directly.

I also didn't remember Scenic Road being much of a climb, but I guess I should have. It rolls right up over the toes of the mountain. It's not terrible though, just more climbing than I'd remembered.

We eventually reached the gate...

...clambered over, and started climbing right up the ridge of Lavender Mountain. "Right up the ridge" might sound like the worst way to go, but the mountains in that part of Georgia are long and thin. Right up the ridge is the easiest route.

There was more logging along the ridge, and some of it offered pretty nice views of the rest of the world.

We climbed and climbed...

...and eventually reached the top of the Hurtin' Gator, which we blissfully descended.

It was... lezpedezious. So much lezpedeza. I had to rip a bunch of it out of my rear derailleur at the bottom.

From there, we took CCC Road the other way, into the mountain campus. We passed the Frost Chapel, where I'd attended a wedding in like 1998, prior to even moving to Atlanta. We passed all kinds of school-related buildings too. I think Camp Windshape is up there, or something.

One thing Berry College is well known for is deer. Deer everywhere!

There are hundreds and they are ambivalent to humans.

There's also a really cool Old Mill, with it's strangely overshot wheel.

Billy at the Old Mill:

We meant to head west and pick up one of the roads leading south to some old church that I forget the name of now (Possum Trot? Something like that), but we missed it, and kept heading west. This led past the chestnut restoration project, which I had forgotten about, and was happy to see again.

I can't believe that's a chestnut tree. I want to say they did some either selective breeding, or maybe direct genetic engineering to make them resistant to blight. But, I might be thinking of some other chestnut restoration project.

We turned left eventually, but I could tell pretty quickly that it wasn't where we'd meant to go when I started seeing old sand pits. I'd been there before though, and remembered it leading out to a different highway.

Yep, it did. From there we took roads back around to the gate, and about halfway back it started absolutely hammering rain. It was weird too... At first it was only raining on the left hand side of the road. We could see it coming down super hard, but not on us. Then, we outran it for a while. Behind us the sky was super dark, and you could see the edge of the storm on the road, but it hadn't caught us yet. We stayed ahead of it for several miles, but eventually got caught and drenched. Not that it mattered much, it was really hot out, and the rain was actually pretty comfortable.

Back at the car, it was a challenge to get changed. The rain hadn't let up at all. We ended up not getting changed. I grabbed a jacket out of my gear bag and put it on my seat, hoping not to soak through it. Billy just sat in the back seat. We went from there to the local CVS and got changed in the bathroom there. I did manage to soak through my jacket a little bit though, and the whole next day, my pants would feel slightly wet when I'd get out of the truck. Not enough to look like I'd peed myself, but enough to tell wearing them.

It wasn't a super long day, but it definitely qualified as Adventure. Lots of stuff we don't ride very often, got slightly lost, and eventually, stormed on. I'll take it!