Funny thing about the heater. Last night, we got the heater back from Sandy and Amber in the RV before they went to bed. When we hooked up the heater in our tent, and the heater in Fabia's tent, the pull was too much for the generator, so we let Fabia use the heater...ie we were heater-less...again. Come to find out this morning, that right before Fabia went to sleep, she turned the heater off in her tent because it got too hot in her tent. The generator ran all night long, with no one using the power, I guess just to lull us to sleep with the engine running. I think we were not meant to use a heater in our tent, HA!
We started a campfire shortly after getting up, had breakfast of pumpkin oatmeal and sausage...yum yum, sure did hit the spot. Oh yeah, and coffee...again a beverage and hand warmer. After breakfast we packed up all our stuff, sleeping bags, duffle bags, and the works. Then we were off on the trail. Thanks to our great support team...they took down our tents, pack everything up in the RV and headed toward Rockmart, not without saying good bye to Terry, the campground caretaker, who stopped by just shortly before we left.
The ride to Rockmart was pretty uneventful, although the hills between Cedartown and Rockmart were just as much killers as they were going the other way. When we got closer to Rockmart, Dan was a little ways ahead of Josiah and me, and we saw him talking to another biker. This other biker had just ridden from Smyrna (approximately 50 miles) and was trying to get back. He apparently was on the road and was getting back on the Silver Comet...but headed the wrong direction. He thought he was headed back to Smyrna, but he was actually headed toward Alabama. Dan got him turned in the right direction and he was off. Along the way from the campground to Rockmart we did stop for some photos...
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| State Line looking toward the Silver Comet |
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| Me |
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| Dan |
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| Me and Dan |
Trail names are names given to you by other people. You cannot give yourself a name. So yesterday, as we were riding back from Anniston, Dan got the three of us got into an "attack" or "offensive" formation on the trail with himself being the point man. At that point he earned the trail name "Voltron." This was a name from a fictional character used in one of our pastor's messages. Today, Josiah and I got our trail names. I already had one, but was christened a new name. I was playing around with "attack" formation, "defense" formation. Dan said "you are being such a trekkie" which I was. He then re-christened me with "Enterprise." He was going to use Trek, but I ride a Fezzari, so that wouldn't work. Later down the trail Josiah got ahead of Dan and myself and then we saw him pull over. Josiah was saying that his jaw was locking. Right there he was christened "Lock Jaw." So there you have it, Voltron, Enterprise and Lock Jaw, what a combination!
We had a fantastic lunch at Rockmart. The support crew fed us deli meat with cheese, chips and fruit. This was the last we would see of our support crew on this trip. We owe so much to these people, they were an absolute blessing and such servants. I remember this morning wanting to pack up my Mizzou chair, and Amber said no, that she would do it, she said you are the rider. Wow, what a servants heart!
Right before we left Rockmart to finish up the trail, which was another 24 miles, I called my wife to give her a time to meet us in Hiram...and that she would get 3 coffees for us. The clouds continued to thicken and about 2 miles from Hiram we started to feel a little drizzle, fortunately it never got any worse than that. We were all feeling the soreness of riding 54+ miles in 3 days, but not enough to keep Dan and Josiah from going off trail on some single track next to the Silver Comet. That didn't last long, but hey, at least they did it.
We pulled into the Hiram trail head, and about 30 seconds later so did my wife...with coffee! Woohoo!!!! Yes, we did it, we traveled over 160 miles in 3 days, putting in over 54 miles each day, camping in sub-freezing temperatures, riding in sub-freezing temperatures at times, and as much as I talked about how cold it was, I really enjoyed the trip and I can't wait to do another. In fact, we talked about the next trip being a mountain bike ride, possibly Jake Mountain just outside of Dahlonega, GA in April 2015.
When I think about what we endured in the frigid weather, this doesn't even compare to what the refugees fleeing from Isis are going through. My heart goes out to them, and through this ride, Josiah told me that we were able to raise around $3000!!!! I applaud Josiah for seeing his dream go from a vision to reality!
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| Lock Jaw, Enterprise and Voltron at the Hiram, GA Trailhead |
Total Miles: 54.5
Total Riding Time: 4 hours 21 minutes
Average Pace: 12.5 MPH
Total Miles: 163.1
Total Riding Time: 13 hours 18 minutes
Average Pace: 12.2 MPH
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