Most cold I have slept in van yet. Outside it was 6 degrees. Inside w/ propane heater on full was 44 deg. Windows frozen over. Fixed bfast. Cold.

Bruce was still sleeping when I knocked on door to say good bye. Chatted w/ Beth & left.

Got just a bit S of Hendersonville, home of the Sprinter repair shop, and the engine control light came on again. No turbo power. Turn around & drive short distance to shop. They get me in quickly again and the charge again was warranty. I have less than 500 miles on the warranty and an electronic system that has already had 3 hickups. Not ready to put it in the VW van bucket. Yet.

Have a telephone interview w/ Chris Youman tonight. He has a web site where he plans on poting his results.

Bill Victor @ FATS thinks I am a character, possibly 1 of the best he’s seen. Sure going to brush my hair for this visit.

Mid afternoon hunker down in a grocery parking lot soaking up sun warmth.

More perhaps later.

Later.

75 miles South of dealership the light came back on. Called Egolf to report problem & line up a Sprinter dealer down road. Got that nailed with a Monday appointment in Thomson, GA for the next fix. I am just miles from warranty expiration, attempting to cover myself for future problems.

Continued driving S. Saw what i beleive are plantation houses just outside Edgefield, SC where I am in the woods. Red clay dirt.

Made Long Cane RS just before closing to inquire about camping. In the Sumter Forest camping is only allowed in organized campsites and the local 1 was closed for season. FS guy cut me a permit to dirtbag camp. Drove back gravel road thru a pine plantation to dead end. Need to understand southern forest logging practices. Land seems flat that lends itself to machine logging and cutting younger trees.

Chris called me and we did phone interview for his web site.

Zysk, I bought some boiled peanuts from a smoke shop. Yes, they were tasty and like a lugie. I wonder if they are better just having been boiled versus slow cooked who knows how many days?

Another cold night forecast. I lack an outside thermometer. I could put the inside 1 outside but that would mean getting out of a comfortable van.

10:00PM Friday night, listening to channel 54 on XM: BB King Bluesville. I liked the other blues on old XM better.

Very fat woman w/ equally fat husband on her choice of men: She wants a man that she doesn’t have to shake the sheets out to find.

Say good night, Trixie.

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.

Got cold last night, couldn’t;t get temp right either too much blanket or not enough heat w/ less blanket.

Camp is still next door & abandoned. Fred says that sometimes homeless people camp out in the forest and then leave leaving most everything behind.

Clear cold morn. decided to ride the same as my first ride here: Up the logging road past the horse stable to Black Mtn over to Buckwheat gap over to Bennett & down. Got into riding up road working on a good spin. On the rough hand made ST I focused on pedaling over the stuff on the trail vs speeding up & hitting them to go over. Rode more things spinning. Trail tread covered w/ leaves leaving me guessing what might be underneath. Almost all of the trails are firm lacking loose rock. But the firm objects needed to be reckoned with. No falls. Getting better at taking bigger drops.

11.12 miles, 2 hours ride time, 2477′ vert. Almost an hour road climb.

Steve from the Dupont ride was parked @ the stables after completing the same ride I was doing. He gave me some more ride ideas further N & E.

A refreshing shower @ laundromat.

Called Pisgah Works in Asheville who had an ad in Dirtrag for Merino wool long sleeve bike jersey. A wool long sleeve jersey will be so comfortable, will put a great smile on my face. Spoke w/ Bruce, the owner, and swapped ride tails. He has taken road trips over the years and rode some of the same trails I have ridden in OR & WA. Big ones: McKenzie River , Lewis River, part of the Umpqua, & Phil’s @ Bend. He invited me up tomorrow for a night experience in Asheville and I will take him up. Said there is some good locally brewed beer to taste. Like I said, “Beer & Bikes.” He gave me a ride for tomorrow: Turkey Pen to Squirrel Gap trail. New ride here in the Pisgah.

Bill from FATS scheduled me for a ride on Sat. He said that there are some old non FATS trails to be ridden hopefully Sunday.

Spent part of AM locating future rides. No matter how I do it I have a long drive to north central FL and then back North. I am thinking of getting it over with right after FATS. The forecast down here is for almost zero temps for this weekend and then warming next week. Catch FL after the deep freeze, might even ride in shorts but no new jersey.

Price of diesel starting back up. In TN I bought for $2.05 / gal. Spent $2,200 so far that was to last for 2 years.

Much effort is expended in building new machine cut trails as well as hand built ones. The machine built ones start to take on the feel of driving an interstate: they are designed to be “flowey” so much that they start to feel the same everywhere. An old hiking trail might be a bitch to ride but it is not boring. The machines remove almost all the roots and rocks, stuff that make a trail challenging. They are also wider and way more room between the trees. They might ride faster. Hand built are very labor intensive taking more time per mile of trail.