So much has happened since I arrived in Augusta such that I have prolly lost chronological order. Met new people, remet several people I met along my travels, rode FATS 3x & going back for the fourth. I plan on updating this posting to recapture what i remember.

Today is a work day for all the others, or at least I have controlled the distractions to my time to catch up. Did some grocery shopping and doing my wash here in I think of Evans, GA Going back to FATS for a solo ride to learn navigation and ride all 4 loops turning right @ each intersection.

Wed afternoon arrived in Augusta in heat & dripping humidity. Host site is Marriot right on Savavnah river bank. parked in lot beside a Sprotsmobile Sprinter conversion. Later learned it is owned by Nat & Rachael Lopes who were part of IMBA trail crew care crew that shared their expertise in Spokane back when I was active w/ bike club. Up @ registration I was mingling w/ all these mtrs & government officials. Suddenly i was smoothered in a warm hug by Liz Victor, Bill’s wife. Warm greeting. Made eye contact w/ a guy that I couldn’t place and he likewise. he stuck out his stare and asked me if I was the guy in the mag article that he read about on his plane flight. I said Yes. We intorducded ourselves. Liz came back and started taling to both of us as if she knew the other guy. She realized that I did not know that Tony, the new guy, is a friend of theirs and will be staying @ their house along w/ me.  Stellar. Tony has a trail building company in Salida, CO. I told him I had ben there. i asked him if he knew Mark & Brenda. He said Mark is his webmaster as Mark is to me.

Chatted w/ Tim from Huntsville, AL who is responsible for trails at Monte Sano. Rick Moon from Dalton and the Rickettes. Rob from Ocola, FL is a friend of Bill’s. I rode w/ him @ Santos. Lunch was provided. One day i picked an empty seat at a table, sat down and stuck out my shaking hand to the guy on my left and introduced myself as if I were attending an AA meeting. Turned out he is Lou, editor of MountainBiking mag, next to him was Joe, owner of BikeMag, and to the right 2 people away was Maurice owner of DirtRag.

Night life on downtown mainstreets

Finishing laundry, drive back to FATS talk to Grace via cell phone. More later.

Monday:

Rode FATS. Bill told me that if I left the parking lot and turned right @ each intersection i would make my way back to aprking lot. That was my ride today: 2440 miles in 2 hrs 30 mins of good pedaling, 2050′ climbed in flat South Carolina and burned 3729 cals. Encountered 1 rider in almost a head on crash. Trail is closed if potential of too wet for good stewardship. Wet trails when ridden on mars the trail. This trail is so smooth. FATS is in my love affair.

Shared fresh strawberries & whipped cream w/ Bill & family. Spent night in driveway. Hard to leave great people I have met along the way.

Peaceful dry night out @ Jakes mtn TH. Chilled off enough to pull up light weight blanket. Trails are deemed too wet to ride per Jon @ bike shop once I arrived there. Jon & I sat around w/ him attempting to work but happier telling his bike stories. I shared a few. In his day Jon was quite the racer. His wife, Nancy, was every bit as great. Spent the AM visiting.

The IRS sent me a letter informing me of taxes owed from my house investments. The letter was mailed to my mail forwarding service, Earthlink. I requested a scan which was emailed to me. I chose to save it as PDF and copied it to my Flash drive. I needed it printed @ an office supply place. Chose UPS which was only 1 in town. Have it printed and determining course of action.

Needed a shower so I drove out to Hiker Hostel. Hatched an idea of offering sweat equity for payment. met Josh outside and made my offer. he said he and Lee were going to be planting their garden and I could help. I told him I am a good worker but I ask a lot of questions. he said, no problem, it’s really simple: Brown is down and green is up. He was leaving to pick up an ill AT hiker and I should visit w/ Lee which i did. She was preparing dinner giving me a captive audience for Talkin’ Dude. Josh returned rescuing her. Neat garden idea as it is raised beds and string marked off in 1 foot squares. They engineered the plants to go where. This design allows for higher density planting yielding more vegetables. It was a fun task for a shower. I made a comment about moonshine and Josh suggested a place up the mtn.

I showered and drove off up to Woody Gap where the AT crosses the hwy. Climbing twisting tight turns to Gap @ 3000′ where a pull out for the AT exists. Drove down towards Suches and turned into road to trout farm. Pulled in. Saw an older man and a younger man on the porch of shop bldg. Younger man was smoking a cig and drinking a bud. I warmed them up w/ free form Craig questions until I could state that I had a ticklish question to ask about moonshine. They each said No. I don’t really know if they meant no they did not have any or answered me as an untrusted person. I accepted No and stayed to chat some more.

I drove down to Suches which is a shadow of an old mtn town. Residents have left the land and little life remains.

Drove back up to Woody Gap and parked @ AT crossing. I walked a bit North on a path marked “Water” In a short ways I came upon a spring ushering forth from under a boulder. Sipped a few handfuls. Back @ Gap a CXT outhouse from Hillsboro Texas stood. Across the hwy there is a great vista out to the South. The land just falls away. Just very wooded. There were 3 backpackers satnding around and I chatted w/ them for awhile. Rookies, ill prepared and unprepared for their adventure. Their packs were too heavy w/ unnecessary gear and were physically unprepared. Their goal was the NC border or 7 days of hiking. They realized NC was unobtainable @ their pace so they relaxed. Another hiker joined them. He had been downsized. His goal was Maine but he was having a hard time. Interesting, this guy and 1 of the 3 were trying to quit smoking but the 1 of 3 scored a pack from someone else who was trying to quit. The single guy bummed a smoke and chain smoked a second. The 3 were looking for an easy way out. The single decided he wanted to go to the Hostel for the night and I offered to drive him down as it was on my way. He accepted. I dropped him off.

I continued to Dahlonega to other grocery store for h20. 2 women were in front of me @ check out. The first one told the checker to stop checking groceries when he reached $10. What was left were 3 bottles of baby food for her child. The woman in front of me told the checker that she would pay for the baby food. She had a $10 bill for her groceries. The baby food sale needed change. I held out my hand full of change for her. Between us the baby food was paid for. People helping people.

Drove back to Jakes for the night. I park in the day use parking lot as I can get internet and XM. The turtle left during the night last night as did the puddle.

Borrowed Kill Bill Vol 2 from Jon to watch.

Tomorrow is Augusta and IMBA.

Yesterday AM camped out near Bull Mtn, an IMBA epic I was greeted by a light drizzle & overcast skies. Debated whether to ride or what? Gambled & drove further into woods to closer parking lot. Gravel road leads to main Bull mtn TH and Springer mtn, start of AT. I parked @ a turnout short of main lot because of possible rough road and I think I remembered a grass parking lot which could be a rough exit in my van. Drizzle quit and skies worked on clearing. temp climbed and humidity rose also. Just sweating before even starting my ride. I hiked a piece of trail checking it out for conditions. Trails appear to drain well in spite of heavy horse traffic. Dropped in on ST to main TH. Trail was drained except for pools of wet horseshit mud @ several low spots. Got splashed w/ stuff you wouldn’t want to put on your garden. Rode up gravel road to TH and around locked gate to start of trail. Heavy horse traffic & poor trail design left a deep gully up the first climb. I made a move up a by pass and felt a searing pain in my left quad. A muscle wasn’t happy. I tried stretching it out and massaging it to no avail. I rode on ignoring it. Seems this is from a muscle tear long time ago from a telemarking injury. Don’t know what’s going on. Today it just throbs.

Rode route from memory. Saw only 1 other person, a rider, near ride’s end. Horses pound out soil between tree roots making for ledges. When h2o runs down the trail these create waterfalls that cause further erosion. Trail design does not spill h2o. Trails are mostly on old logging roads. There are a few pieces of trail that are modern made that do a nice job of keeping h2o off the trail and the horses don’t seem to beat them up as badly.

Finished ride. Back @ van I rinsed off the mud. I headed back to Dahlonega Wheelworks hoping to find their hose and h2o turned on for a bike wash. Score. washed off bike, not to make it pretty but mud free. Ray, a partial owner of the shop, had his car parked in the lot. He must have been out on a ride. He showed up while I was cleaning up. He is training for maybe his 11th Leadville and just finished a 60 mile road ride. I asked if I could sleep in his lot and he said yes. Not a very good choice but I had permission.

Next step was to Find Hiker Hostel outside of town owned by Josh & Leah for a shower. I met these folks last time. They thru hiked the AT years ago and realized that there was no hostel near start of AT so they filled that need. I found the place and where Leah almost met me up close and personal as she was backing out of parking spot. She was leaving and nobody else was there. She allowed me a shower which I enjoyed and left. Driest part of day was in the shower.

Drove back into town. Needed some groceries, only store opened was a super WalMart. No overnight camping allowed. WalMart is a crazy people watching scene of people who are marching to their definition of life. It’s part of America that us “refined” people choose to ignore. These are the people that work on our cars, cut our trees, maybe work in factories. They perform the unsung uneducated jobs that support us. I can’t fit in & wouldn’t want to invite them for dinner.

Drove into town to amuse myself w/ another tourist jaunt. Picked an Irish pub serving a pizza special: Mexican. Drank a pint of Guinness while watching & listening to locals.

Back @ bike shop on main highway midway down or up a big hill w/ a stop light @ the bottom. Full sunshine. Some vehicles were very loud driving up the hill. Going to be a noisy night. And hot. Sundown is @ 8:00 allowing the temp to drop slightly. Forecast is for heavy rain which caused me to decide to stay in town instead of the quiet in the forest. Just around 10:00 a few sprinkles fell and that was it. I was hoping the rain would drop the temp to a sleeping level. No such luck. I was awakened around midnight by my cell phone ringing as I forgot to turn it off @ 10:00 like I do every night. It was Dean from Sedona calling. He said I was famous as he had seen the BikeMag article. I wasn’t very conversational. I was hot & sweating.

About 3:00AM the skies dumped. Hard rain. As morning commute traffic picked up the rain literally drowned out the traffic. A bit cooler. I slid out of bed before 7:00. Rain found a way around mt sealing of my exhaust fan and wetted the carpet seriously, no standing h20, just wet. Seems w/ so hard a rain the h20 pooled up and ran into a gap in the seal. Once the rain lessened the leak went away.

So I am still here in Dahlonega waiting for shop opening @ 11:00 to have my brakes bled. The heavy rains have probably squashed any rides between here & Augusta on Wed. Time for body recovery.

Update:

Rain let up. Back @ now opened shop. Met Jon who had a big smile. Welcome back. Good visit. Zak bled my brakes and fiddled w/ my bottom bracket. He put a spacer back in and said new wiggle is from worn plastic bushing on bottom bracket itself. I need to find a Chris King person to ascertain his comment. rebuilt drive train. paid Jon w/ warranty replacement Excavator tire. Josh from the Hostel arrived, thanked him for shower. Last year he pointed out that Leah named their laying chickens. i noticed that there were more chickens but no names. Wondered if previous batch might have made the pot. He said Leah is making new tags.

Bid adieu after getting directions from Zak to a grocery store. His route took me on country by roads. i misunderstood his directions & ended up heading to Gainesville. Corrected myself & arrived in Dawsonville. Nice hilly country roads, no frost heave.

Drove back to jake mtn TH where I stayed several nights earlier. Pulled into parking lot. Got out & saw a woods turtle in a water puddle. Life is so slow that I watched it off & on during dinner fixings, like watching paint dry. Have internet and XM reception here.

Skies cleared & temp dropped a bit. Beautiful evening. Need low humidity to dry carpet and trails.