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.