I saw this as a perfect opportunity to do a one-way, couple of day bicycle tour to Chattanooga. I could meet Lisa after the shower, see Hannah and Eden for a bit, and then load the bike in the car and ride back home with Lisa.
Day one started out great with a beautiful sunrise as I was leaving Athens (pic below).
The plan on the first day was to camp at the Walls of Jericho trailhead on top of the Cumberland Plateau. As I was climbing the mountain, which is almost a 3 mile climb and provided me plenty of time to think, I decided to change my plans. Instead of camping on the mountain, I decided to continue on, go back off the mountain, and find a campsite near Stevenson, AL.
This changed my original plans completely. My original plan was to camp on the Cumberland Plateau the first night, at Marion County Park the second night, and then ride the last 30 or so miles to Chattanooga on the third day, and be there by noon, when the wedding shower ended.
The weather on the first day of riding was perfect, but the weather forecast for the next couple of days called for rain. In fact, when I called the host at Marion County Park to ask about availability of campsites on the night I would be there, he said they were expecting a lot of rain, wind and thunderstorms that day and the next. His comment made me recall when a couple of touring buddies and I pulled into a campground near Starkville, MS, on bikes and started pitching our tents during a tornado warning. It would be nice to always have perfect weather during bicycle trips, but it's just not going to happen. You just have to roll with the punches and look at bad weather as part of the adventure.
The first night, I camped at the Crow Creek Wildlife Management Area just outside of Stevenson. It was not a campground, but instead was in a very low-lying, marshy area near Crow Creek. I was able to find a spot just big enough and dry enough to pitch my tent. I had a restless night's sleep and decided at 3:30 a.m. to get up, break camp before the forecasted rain began, and hit the road.
Scenery pic from Day 1 below.
Day 2's ride was much different from Day 1. I was in and out of cool rain showers the entire day. Since, on Day 1, I had made it about 25 miles closer to Chattanooga than I had originally planned, I decided to make it all the way to Chattanooga on Day 2. I made it there and was amazed at how much it had changed since I moved from there about 3 years ago. There were new buildings, both residential and commercial, in a lot of locations. The traffic seemed much worse also, with a neverending flow of motorists in a hurry to get somewhere. Not sure if the hectic traffic situation has really increased that much or if I have just been spoiled by biking in and around a small town the past 3 years. Because of the traffic, I spent a few miles today riding on a sidewalk beside Hixson Pike, which I hardly ever did when I lived there.
I made it to Chester Frost Park, which is a very nice Hamilton County Park that has a campground, where I camped. It rained a portion of the night, but I had a really sound sleep.
I got up about 6 a.m. (Chattanooga time), broke camp, and rode to McDonald's in Hixson where I had breakfast and killed about 3 hours listening to music and writing this blog entry while waiting for the wedding shower to end.
The past 2 days I was able to set up and break camp without rain. Those are the most frustrating things to do in the rain when bicycle touring, so I was very fortunate about that.
Total miles Day 1: 100.4
Total miles Day 2: 68.1
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