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!