Last night I camped at Catherine's and Joey's house in Flintstone, GA, which is just outside Chattanooga. I worked with Joey in Chattanooga and Lisa and I have become good friends with him and Catherine. They offered several sleeping options to me, which included sleeping in their guest bedroom, on their screened-in porch, in their newly built shed, or pitching my tent under a lean to beside the shed. They told me a storm was forecasted to hit at about 3 a.m. Stubborn me opted for the sleep in the tent out in the open to truly experience the great outdoors.
Well, I can tell you the forecasters were wrong. It wasn't 3 a.m., it was 3:30 a.m. that the storm hit. It began with fairly strong winds that woke me from a deep, REM dream, confused when you wake up wondering where you are, sleep. Man, thinking back, I was in a good sleep. Then came a downpour followed by steady rain. So here I am at 4:15 a.m. writing this entry on my blog, enjoying the great outdoors. :)
I went to the Dinner Bell restaurant in Flintstone for breakfast and they fixed me up really nice. Grits, 2 eggs, a biscuit, and 2 pancakes (they gave me an extra pancake because I did not want a meat) and all for $4.99 (pic below).
A short distance from the restaurant was my first climb, Turner's Ridge. I lost the calories from one of those pancakes on that ridge.
I then went into the Chickamauga Battlefield for a short distance. I passed by the Wilder Monument and snapped a pic of it. A lady there told me it is closed to the public and some pigeons have set up home there and they sound like ghosts (pics below).
The 2nd named ridge I went over today was Taylor's Ridge. It was a rather tough climb that dropped me to under 4 mph. Its quite challenging to keep your bike going in a straight line at that speed. Pic below provides some info about that ridge.
My touring bubby, Bob, met me in Dalton, GA, and is going to ride with me a couple of days. We rode together to Chatsworth, where we split up and I went across Fort Mountain and Bob went around it. Fort Mountain is in the background in the pics below.
It was about a 6 mile climb up Fort Mountain. Below are some pics from the mountain. About the time I started descending the mountain, a steady rain begun so I rode my brakes quite a bit to keep from going too fast on the wet roads.
The rain had stopped by the time I made it to Ellijay and Bob and I met up again there. Below are some pics of the Ellijay town center. It was a happening place.
We then had a nightmarish ride for about 10 miles to our campground, Diamond Lure Campground. It was on GA Hwy 52, which was primarily a 2 lane road, very little shoulder, and a LOT of traffic going both ways - and steady rain. There was a bike lane on a few miles of it, but it was not even comfortable riding in the bike lane due to the amount of speeding traffic flying by us.
We made it to our campsite with the rain continuing, and even getting harder at times and pitched tents in the rain. My tent was still soaked from the rain early this morning so I got some paper towels from the bathroom and dried my tent floor as good as possible.
I was looking forward to taking a hot shower at the campground, but I was so waterlogged and it was still raining I thought what's the point and bypassed the shower. Maybe I can take one in the morning.
Total miles today: 85.2
The pictures are beautiful! I guess everyone is out on the the roads on the weekends there looking for apples and scenery. Jack and I went to Ellijay and Blue Ridge this summer on a weekend, and it was ridiculously packed. We tried to get out and walk around, but there were too many unmasked people. You are pretty courageous to ride up Fort Mountain. Did you see any moon-eyed people while you were there?
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of people doing the apple thing in this area now. We went by one pumpkin picking place that was extremely busy. I think we are now out of the big time tourist area. Thank goodness.
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