Chilly night. Heater on med. At 4:45 I woke up sensing all was not the same. One short look @ the refrigerator instrument panel that is almost @ eye level displayed the letter “F” for failure. Out of propane. And the air temp did not have a source of heat in it. 4:45, no heat, no bfast. At least the food should be safe. I drove to freeman’s S of town & arrived about 7:30. We don’t open until 8:00. Cool, Yes and I meant OK. Ran the engine for a short while. Filled up tank to 80% of capacity.
Drove back to Dollies to fix bfast and then to FS visitor center to say good bye to Fred. Good bye Fred.
Drove to Turkey Pen TH. The road up on non federal land was the worst I have ever driven my van on. The FS road was in much better shape.Jockeyed for a level parking spot for the frige
Cold & clear. Blue sky. I planned to replace my front disc pads as they were worn. Simple process, leve the old pads back into caliper to make room for the new pads w/ more material. Used a screwdrive per instructions. The disc just barely spun between the pads and I thought that if I rode for a litle bit the material would wear away. But then I squeezed the brake lever back. No brake, nothing, no fluid compressing the pistons. Oh Goodie. Drive up this horrible road w/o a ride to even mollify my driving decision. Loaded back up and drove to The Hub to allow Sam and Alex to earn their $. Sam mistakenly bled the rear brake which I wasn’t concerned w/ but quite a lot of air escaped. He bled the front brake and found oodles of air. Now the brakes work as true 1 finger over the bar brakes but excellent modulation. According to Sam Formula brakes have the best modulation..
Stopped @ laundromat to say goodbye to Vito who shared some of his romantic travails. The laundromat was fun with the brothers.
Drove into Asheville for my jersey and beer evening. Both times been in town it has been cold, windy, & sunny.
Temp getting cold. Tomorrow I am driving to FATS and then down to FL to get that state on the count column.
Update after evening in Asheville.
GPS navigated me right to Bruce’s door of a large old house inn an old residential section of town. 1front room was filled w/ bikes. Bruce is in young 30s as are a group of guys & gals in this unit of people. Not everybody lives in this house but have connections w/ people who do. But this unit is a subset of house population. Bruce starts to organize 6 people in 2 cars w/ slightly different agenda items to accomplish before hitting Pisgah Brewery up in Black Mountain. I pull on my jersey. Wow, so soft & cool. I was told that I needed to wear it on the beer stop. The jersey has “Pisgah” in big letters across the chest & is a pea green color. Pisgah is the national forest I had been riding in. Google Pisgah & learn the assignment of its local name.
Our car w/ Bruce & Ian driving start to suffer from i do not know where the brewery is which is in an industrail complex and the actual “pub” is located in the brewery whare house. Several false turns & we arrive to a non descript building. The pub has a bar w/ lots of their handcrafted beers and that’s it. Concrete floor. A old time music band was playing: banjo, fiddle, guitar, & bass. Their music was what was played before bluegrass moved in. Band memebers in 30s and all apperared to be normal. The fiddle played educated me on their music and was literate.
People brought their dogs, at least some people did. In a pub, drinking a well crafted porter, listening to old time music, & walking around dog leashes.
I engaged a 30 yo attractive woman, psych masters degree in a Craig coversdation which she said seveal times that she enjoyed it as she liked it and few people were able to engage her in it. She left early, darn.
Bruce has ties w/ the brewery owner and we gained access to the man’s cave to play pool. They drank quite a bit of beer, i stayed w/ to pints.
We left for a dance club near the house. I begged off and was dropped off @ my van on the city street outside their house around 10:30.
Tom, there were common items to the loppers ball but then there were a whole bunch of items not congruent. What was same: beer and people having good time.