Blue Ridge Mountain Skies

North Georgia is only 6 hours away.  It has mountains.  It has many trails.  Why don't I live there?  Oh yea, I couldn't make a living.  But damn I love the mountains!

Race Weekend

The week started with the first GSC race in Macon Ga.  I crashed in the time trial Saturday and got 4th, The Kid got second, plus he beat my time by 19 seconds.  Hey, I did crash.  In the cross country race on Sunday The Kid and I both got second place in our respective classes.  My legs lasted until half way through the last of 3 laps then they decided they'd had enough.  Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining about a second place finish, it's just that I have quite a bit more work to do on the OMTP.  I admit it did make me happy to get to the top of a hill on the last lap and see the newbie in our class trying to stretch out a bad set of cramps.  He had been hammering hard out front since the start.  That extra lap in sport does make a difference.

 

 

 

We left Macon after the race and arrived in Blue Ridge Ga. at around 6 pm., found the cabin, and went to Ingles.  Tired and hungry is not the way to go grocery shopping.  I wish they had an Ingles in Beautiful Downtown Havana, it's an awesome store.

Anyhoo, we purchased enough to get us through that night and the next day, went back to the cabin, had a drink and some pizza, then passed out on the couch in front of the fire.

That was Sunday, Monday dawned cold and cloudy, and after coffee and bear claws, we started our recon of the area.

We put the Subaru to good use fording small streams and climbing rocky roads in search of trail heads and bike shops.  It flooded that evening, so no biking on Tuesday.

Take a Hike

But we did get to hike.  After the obligatory Lovely Wife's shopping time (which we do on every trip) we hiked up to Green Mountain.

 

 

 

The Ride

 



Wednesday I decided (against the advice of Sam at Southern Cycles) to take the fam to the Ocoee Whitewater Center and ride MTBs.  Short story is the Lovely Wife crashed when I mistakenly took her on a trail labeled difficult.  She did manage to ride 2 hours though and was kind enough to let The Kid and I do a little single track ride by ourselves.  I want to go back, the trails aren't as good as Dupont, but they're not as hard as Pisgah.  I just wish we had studied the map a little closer before we left the trail head.

 

Eating Out?

 

The town of Blue Ridge is kinda weird.  No alcohol except beer and wine in the restaurants.  Imagine the horror of eating strange Mexican without the aid of a Margarita!  The eating establishments were not always open either.  Next time we'll just buy more at Ingles and stay at the cabin to eat. 

I hope the "next time" is this summer.

As he stares up into heaven
I'm sure I know the reason why
He's thinking about, about that promised land
In those blue ridge mountain skies
(Marshall Tucker)