Cold Showers

Finally we were able to do the camping/ riding trip I have wanted to do since last year. BW and BJS were the only two brave souls who signed up for a weekend with me in the woods. B caught a cold the week before so he was out (and mad). Everybody else had some reason or another not to attend. You know who you are, and yes, you missed a great time.

Three grown men shopping in the Ingles Grocery store in Thomaston, Ga. must have been a sight for the locals. We loaded up on fried chicken, white bread rolls, and anything else we could find that wasn't good for us. The pastry aisle got quite a bit of attention also. BW kept riding the grocery cart up and down the store. It was like traveling with a child.

Camp Thunder Boy Scout Camp is located in the Pine Mountain Range along the Flint River. It must have 500 canvas tents set up on wooden decks, each group of tents arranged around a central fire pit. It costs a whole $4 per person per night to rent one of the tents. I was worried we might have to share a tent (BJS snores and looks at his phone all night) but we each had our own, in fact we had our own section all to ourselves.

Friday night was cold and I was glad I had bought a new sleeping bag.

The showers at the camp were an experience. You had to hold a string to keep the warm water flowing. So the dance went like this: 1. Hold string and try to stand out of the way of the ice cold water splashing on you while you waited for it to warm up 2. Jump under the flow of warm water 3. Let go of the string to grab the soap 4. Soap up 5. Grab the string again 6. Scream when the first burst of water is cold again 7. Repeat. Keep in mind the shower stalls were about 10 degrees warmer than the 28 degrees it was outside. Refreshing to say the least. But the tents were comfortable and the woods around the camp were in full fall color. I did feel sorry for the Atlanta dads that had to camp out with their Cub Scouts. It sounded like a small war at the bottom of the mountain.

Saturday was the Thunder Mountain trail ride guided by BW. They told me it was old school mountain bike trail. They had me kinda nervous. Turns out it was great trail. I managed to ride quite a bit of it. We did 13 miles and averaged 5.1 miles per hour. I'm not going to try to describe the trail. I will say that despite my whining at the beginning I ended up enjoying the ride.

Sunday we packed up and headed for Dauset Trails for some new school MTBing. Once again I can't think of a way to put these amazing trails into words. It was a different type of ride from Thunder Mountain and after 19 miles we were tired and had had enough. This remains one of my favorite trail systems, I can't believe we only saw 5 riders on the trail all afternoon.

You tend to forget about the adult problems that normally go through your head when all you have to do for the day is eat, ride, and sleep. On the way home I could feel the weight of my normal world slowly settle back on my shoulders; funny, I hadn't realized I had left it behind until it started creeping back. I guess that's just what goes along with being a grown up. But for 2 days I got to be 17 again.